KABUL (SW) – Afghanistan stands committed to the water sharing agreement with Iran dating back to 1973, said an Islamic Emirate official.<\/p>\n
This is in response to the statements of Hossein Amir Abdullahian, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, who said that all options are on the agenda to ensure the Helmand water supply.<\/p>\n
Iran’s state news agency IRNA, quoting the country’s foreign minister, wrote: “We will continue collective efforts until the desired result is achieved, and all options are on the agenda to achieve it.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Bilal Karimi, one of the deputy spokespersons of the Islamic Emirate, told Salam Watandar that the Islamic Emirate is committed to the 1973 treaty regarding Helmand waters. He adds: “The existing agreement was signed in 1973, and the Islamic Emirate pays attention to it. As for the fact that the water is sometimes low and high, it is related to droughts that people on both sides suffer. The Islamic Emirate has no consideration in that matter.”<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Mustafa Mudassar, a researcher of international relations, says that Iran is trying to pass the pressure of its internal problems on Afghanistan. He added: “Our water problem with Iranians started in 1970s. At that time, it was determined to allow a certain amount of water to Iran as an upstream country. Since then, the memorandum of understanding between Iran and Afghanistan has not been updated. First, the water in Helmand has decreased; the second is that Afghanistan has managed to divert this water in some parts. Iran was trying to get more rights. Floods and the discussion of excess water that goes, do not count this. Sometimes Iranian people press, why don’t they have water, Iran is trying to attack Afghanistan.”<\/p>\n
In this regard, Tariq Farhadi, an expert on political issues, says that water may bbe allowed to Iran when the rains fall. He aadded “Iran has its own internal problems. There is a drought, in the southeast of Iran, at this time of day and night, demonstrations are going on because the people don’t have water and these things that the foreign minister of Iran says, he says for the relief of his people. It is the same contract that was signed in 1973. Afghanistan accepts Iran’s claim. For now, there is no change in that agreement and the realization of that agreement is on the condition that it rains and Afghanistan is ready to provide water to Iran.”<\/p>\n
However, Basit Rahmani, an expert on water affairs, says that due to climate changes and droughts, the existence of water in Helmand should be reviewed. He added: “Given that Iran is at the lower stream of the Helmand river basin, it was decided to allow 22 cubic meters of water per second and four additional cubic meters as goodwill. The issue that exists in Sistan and Baluchistan is because economic and social growth in these areas is based on water. While in these areas we do not have the ability to invest in the water sector. To solve this issue, a revision should be made in the water availability section. Fifty years ago, there were more water resources.”<\/p>\n
In the history of political relations between Kabul and Tehran, the Helmand river claim is considered one of the points of dispute between the two countries, and these differences increased when the Kamal Khan and Salma dams were built by Kabul and Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, the president of the previous government of Afghanistan, said Afghanistan’s water resources are as precious as Iran’s oil.<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KABUL (SW) – Afghanistan stands committed to the water sharing agreement with Iran dating back to 1973, said an Islamic Emirate official. This is in response to the statements of Hossein Amir Abdullahian, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, who said that all options are on the agenda to ensure the Helmand water supply. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,984,981],"tags":[12,1099],"class_list":["post-14212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-economy","tag-afghanistan","tag-iran-water"],"views":61,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14215,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14212\/revisions\/14215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}