Translated from Russian:

The struggle for natural resources in the region escalates

The problem of access to water suitable for human use and use in agriculture, as climate change and population increases, is exacerbated in many regions. The lack of water resources provokes mass migrations and becomes the cause of armed conflicts and wars.

One such region is Afghanistan and its neighboring countries. All Afghan rulers faced the water problem. The Taliban government (banned in Russia) is no exception. It needs to deal with the increasing frequency of long-term droughts. After coming to power in 2021, the government almost immediately moved to implement projects that, in its opinion, should reduce the water shortage in the country. In particular, this refers to the use of water resources of the border river Amudarya, which affects the interests of the countries of Central Asia (CA), and the transboundary river Helmand, which originates in Afghanistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains.

Disputes between the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and Afghanistan over the division of water in the lower Helmand have been going on for more than 100 years. Now the issues of sharing water resources are regulated by an intergovernmental agreement signed in 1973. In accordance with it, Afghanistan undertakes to supply Iran with 22 cubic meters indefinitely. m of water per second. The Iranian side should receive about 811 million cubic meters. m of water per year, not having the right to take more.

Already in 1974, the Afghan side, violating one of the clauses of the agreement banning the construction of any technical structures without approval, began construction of the Kamal Khan dam near the Iranian border. Due to political instability in Afghanistan, the project was completed only in 2021.

In Afghanistan, they believe that all this time, Iran, taking advantage of the instability of its neighbor, received much more water than was provided for by the agreement. Since 2021, the Taliban government has been unilaterally setting water supply norms, which has led to increased tensions between the countries. The situation escalated sharply this spring, when a severe drought and Taliban actions led to a decrease in the level of water entering Iran. This led to the drying up of Lake Khamun, which provides water to the population of the province of Sistan and Balochistan. According to the Iranian side, hundreds of settlements in this region are abandoned by their inhabitants.

For the Iranian authorities, it is now important to stabilize the situation in the provinces of Sistan and Balochistan, since it is there that one of the main centers of protest activity has formed in recent years. Tehran is aware that the problem of water shortages can cause protests and an increase in domestic political tension not only there, but in the country as a whole.

For this reason, Iran has to react very sharply to any attempts to change the balance of power in water policy. In response, in Afghanistan they say that they are forced to limit the supply of water due to difficult climatic conditions and lack of resources.

As a result, after the exchange of accusations on May 27, the problem escalated into an armed clash on the border of Iran and Afghanistan, near the Iranian settlements of Makaki and Sasuli (Sistan and Balochistan provinces), during which there were casualties on both sides. Two Iranian border guards were killed, the Taliban also suffered losses, but their scale is still unknown.

They tried to stabilize the situation. According to the Iranian edition of Pars Today, a meeting of the Taliban government commission on the recent escalation took place in Kabul. Its participants called for the normalization of relations with Iran, calling them part of Afghanistan’s foreign policy, and also discussed Tehran’s claims to Kabul under the 1973 treaty.

The Iranian side, judging by the statements of representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the military and the police, is also not inclined to aggravate the situation. According to the Mehr news agency, Department Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Seyyed Rasul Mousavi believes that any conflict with Afghanistan will lead to strategic losses for both sides. And Brigadier General Kiyumars Heydari, Commander of the IRI Army Ground Forces, said that “as long as a country that shares a common border with us follows the rules, it will see mutual respect, but if it turns out that someone does not want to abide by them, they will be treated differently”.

However, the problem remained unresolved. The Iranian authorities are confident that they are right and demand that their specialists be allowed into the Afghan hydrotechnical facilities in order to inspect and assess the true state of affairs with water supplies.

If for Afghanistan and Iran the water problem is a historical dispute, then in relations with the Central Asian countries, the conflict is just beginning to emerge. The reason was the start of construction by the Taliban in March 2022 of the Kosh-tepa canal, which in the future will take up to 10 cubic meters of gas from the Amu Darya. km of water.

It is assumed that the canal with a length of 285 km, a width of 100 m and a depth of 8.5 m will irrigate about 6 thousand square meters. km of land in three Afghan provinces (Balkh, Jowzjan, Faryab) and will provide employment for about 250 thousand people. The estimated cost of the project is about 690 mmillion dollars More than 6 thousand people were involved in the work. By November 2022, the length of the finished section was 40 km, and by the end of 2023, it is planned to complete the first stage with a length of just over 100 km. Completion of the project is scheduled for 2028.

The idea of the need to build a canal in the north of Afghanistan, the water intake of which will be located on the left bank of the Amu Darya in the Kaldar district of Balkh province, was discussed in Kabul for a long time. All feasibility studies were worked out under the previous government, but the project was never implemented. The Taliban, after coming to power in August 2021, announced their claims to the water of the Amu Darya, after which they began to implement an ambitious plan.

Despite the financial and humanitarian problems in Afghanistan, the Taliban continue to build Kosh-tepa. For them, the channel has become a kind of symbol with which they are trying to demonstrate independence and strength to their opponents.

Statements are heard from Kabul that the construction will be carried out at the expense of internal revenues, but experts have doubts about this. As one of the main sponsors of the Taliban, Qatar is most often mentioned, which is still the conductor of US foreign policy ideas in Afghanistan. The main danger for the Central Asian countries is that the US will be able to influence the distribution of the water resources of the Amu Darya. Thus, in the future, Washington will be able to use the water factor to exert political pressure on the Central Asian republics.

After the completion of the project, about 25% of the water from the Amu Darya will be redirected to the Kosh-Tepa canal, which may lead to a serious shortage of water on the agricultural lands of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Experts predict that these countries will lose up to 15% of irrigation water.

Uzbekistan, with its rapidly growing population, is the main consumer of water in Central Asia. In the event of an acute shortage of water due to the actions of the Taliban, the republic will be forced to either revise its water policy or negotiate with the Taliban.

Other countries in the region also have cause for concern. One of the main consequences of the construction of the “Kosh-tepa” canal may be the difficulty in accessing the population of Central Asia to fresh water. The implementation of the project will lead to a sharp decrease in the water level in the Amu Darya, which will provoke desertification of some territories and a decrease in productivity.

Turkmen environmentalists believe that the canal poses dangers to Afghanistan itself. This statement is based on many years of scientific research and observation of the impact of objects such as the Karakum Canal in Turkmenistan and a number of objects in Uzbekistan on the environment. The commissioning of the canal will lead to a rise in the groundwater level and salinization of agricultural land both in Afghanistan and throughout the region. At the same time, some plots of land will not only be saline, but also periodically flooded.

The Taliban also plan to build the Dasht-i-Dzhun hydroelectric complex by the end of the 2020s, which will allow Afghanistan to concentrate most of the summer flow of the Pyanj River bordering Tajikistan. Afghanistan has every right to claim its share of the water resources of the Pyanj and Amu Darya border rivers. However, there are no international legal mechanisms between the Central Asian countries and Afghanistan to resolve the situation on the joint use of transboundary waters. Kabul does not take part in the meetings of the Interstate Coordinating Water Commission (ICWC) of the countries of the Amu Darya-Syr Darya basin. For this reason, none of the republics can veto and prevent the construction of the Kosh-Tepa canal, since, in fact, Afghanistan does not violate anything.

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About the author: Plotnikov Nikolai Dmitrievich – Head of the Center for Scientific and Analytical Information (TSNAI) of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Political Sciences; Sinelnikov Dmitry Andreevich – leading specialist of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.