“We and Iraq have agreements about seven cross-border rivers on how to use shared water. Unfortunately Sirwan and Little Zab rivers that come to Iraqi Kurdistan from Iranian Kurdistan are not among these seven written agreements,” Iranian Consul General to Sulaimani, Saadullah Masoudian, told Rudaw.
“Since 2017 several times we asked the Iraqi government to establish a commission for signing a contract with Iran regarding how to use Sirwan and Little Zab rivers. We also ask the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to ask the Iraqi government to establish a commission to talk and decide on how to use the two cross-border rivers of Sirwan and Little Zab,” Masoudian added.
Iran restricted the flow of the cross-border Little Zab River on Sunday resulting in a shortage of drinking water for the residents of Qaladze in the Kurdistan Region. Iran has constructed a dam on the Little Zab River in Sardasht.
“Iran’s consulate to Sulaimani promised to solve the water problem in Qaladze,” Azad Mohammed Amin, head of the Sulaimani Provincial Council, told Rudaw
The consulate said Iran is taking the water problem very seriously from a humanitarian standpoint.
On Tuesday, a committee from Sulaimani provincial council and Iran’s consulate in Sulaimani will visit the area near Little Zab between Qaladze in the Kurdistan Region and Sardasht in Iranian Kurdistan.
The primary sources of water in the Kurdistan Region are five main rivers that provide 75 percent of water for household and commercial use, drinking, and agriculture. Two of these, the Sirwan and the Little Zab, flow into the Region from Iran.
