Shifting water border prompts talks with Iran

The absence of dredging operations in Iraq’s Shat al-Arab waterway, formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris in the southern province of Basra, has led to erosion on the Iraqi side, a specialist has told IRIN.

“The absence of dredging operations, which used to be conducted on the Iraqi side of the river… has allowed silt to build up,” said Malik Hassan, director of the Seas Sciences Centre affiliated to the University of Basra.

Hassan said Iraq is consequently losing to Iran some 3.5 metres of its river bank annually along much of the 200km-long river which forms the border between the two countries.

“Sunken ships and the remnants of munitions of the [Iraq-Iran] war have prevented technical teams from conducting dredging operations on the Iraqi side and that has led to a change in the river’s course and erosion on the Iraqi side,” Hassan said.

The Algiers Accord, which Iran and Iraq signed in 1975, set the border between the two countries in the middle of the waterway, known as Arvand Rood in Iran and Shat al-Arab in Iraq.

Talks with Iran

On 22 February Iraq and Iran held talks and agreed to set up two joint technical committees to tackle the demarcation of land and water borders, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

The talks focused on cleaning up the strategic Shat al-Arab waterway, removing silt that has built up on the Iraqi side of the waterway and removing sunken ships and landmines, it said.

The waterway provides landlocked-Iraq with its only outlet to the sea, and tensions have flared sporadically between the two countries over the waterway's delineation.

The February talks were the third time in 27 years that the two countries have discussed border issues. The first talks since the protracted Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s were held in August 2007.

Tensions mounted recently after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he did not recognise the 1975 border agreement. Talabani later said he had "reservations" and called for negotiations with Iran.

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