Reservoir levels in the GAP area have dropped dangerously, jeopardizing the power generating capabilities that the project was designed to produce. Turkey, increasingly torn between whether it wants to be part of Europe or the economic powerhouse for a largely Turkic-speaking Central Asia, has been saying for months that it faces a grave energy shortage because of the drought. Dogan Altinbilek, head of Turkey's waterworks institution, said in February that the water flow into hydroelectric dams, which he said have a capacity of 51 billion cubic meters, has been decreasing since 1998. All of which presumably means devil take the hindmost and whatever there is to spare will go where the political capital is greatest. If, as seems to be the case, that global warming is changing the rainfall pattern, then the whole water equation is going to undergo dramatic and continuing transformation and the whole concept of water-sharing may be about to undergo a strategic transformation as well.
Water means sustenance, and food production as well.
Perhaps that means that what you have you hold, and barter on the best political terms. If that's the case, much of the Middle East may be held to ransom the highest bidder gets to drink. Viewed through that prism, the water crisis has helped accelerate a rapprochement between Iraq and Syria, which for have been bitter rivals for decades. Baghdad severed relations with Damascus in 1980 over Syria's support for Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Turkey's 1996 alliance with Israel spurred the reconciliation that began the following year and events in the region have given it impetus.