page_title: Euphrates
section_title: Modern era
hierarchical_section_title: Euphrates / History / Modern era
caption_attribution_description: English: Euphrates River
context_page_description: The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in the Armenian Highlands of eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf.
context_section_description: After World War I, the borders in Southwest Asia were redrawn in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), when the Ottoman Empire was partitioned. Clause 109 of the treaty stipulated that the three riparian states of the Euphrates (at that time Turkey, France for its Syrian mandate and the United Kingdom for its mandate of Iraq) had to reach a mutual agreement on the use of its water and on the construction of any hydraulic installation. An agreement between Turkey and Iraq signed in 1946 required Turkey to report to Iraq on any hydraulic changes it made on the Tigris–Euphrates river system, and allowed Iraq to construct dams on Turkish territory to manage the flow of the Euphrates.
  The river featured on the coat of arms of Iraq from 1932–1959.
  Turkey and Syria completed their first dams on the Euphrates – the Keban Dam and the Tabqa Dam, respectively – within one year of each other and filling of the reservoirs commenced in 1975. At the same time, the area was hit by severe drought and river flow toward Iraq was reduced from 15.3 cubic kilometres (3.7 cu mi) in 1973 to 9.4 cubic kilometres (2.3 cu mi) in 1975. This led to an international crisis during which Iraq threatened to bomb the Tabqa Dam. An agreement was eventually reached between Syria and Iraq after intervention by Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union. A similar crisis, although not escalating to the point of military threats, occurred in 1981 when the Keban Dam reservoir had to be refilled after it had been almost emptied to temporarily increase Turkey's hydroelectricity production. In 1984, Turkey unilaterally declared that it would ensure a flow of at least 500 cubic metres (18,000 cu ft) per second, or 16 cubic kilometres (3.8 cu mi) per year, into Syria, and in 1987 a bilateral treaty to that effect was signed between the two countries. Another bilateral agreement from 1989 between Syria and Iraq settles the amount of water flowing into Iraq at 60 percent of the amount that Syria receives from Turkey. In 2008, Turkey, Syria and Iraq instigated the Joint Trilateral Committee (JTC) on the management of the water in the Tigris–Euphrates basin and on 3 September 2009 a further agreement was signed to this effect.
  On 15 April 2014, Turkey began to reduce the flow of the Euphrates into Syria and Iraq. The flow was cut off completely on 16 May 2014 resulting in the Euphrates terminating at the Turkish–Syrian border. This was in violation of an agreement reached in 1987 in which Turkey committed to releasing a minimum of 500 cubic metres (18,000 cu ft) of water per second at the Turkish–Syrian border.
  During the Syrian civil war and the Iraqi Civil War, much of the Euphrates was controlled by the Islamic State from 2014 until 2017, when the terrorist group began losing land and was eventually defeated territorially in Syria at the Battle of Baghouz and in Iraq in the Western Iraq offensive respectively.
caption: Euphrates near Kahta
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