A peace treaty with Syria will not be achieved without a resolution of the issue of water rights on the Golan Heights, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said this week.
“Without a solution to the water problem we will not have any agreement,” he said Tuesday, adding that one solution might be that “Syria would get water from Turkey and we would keep all the water sources that are under our authority today.”
The Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1968 and which the Syrians have demanded be fully returned to them, is a key water gathering region in the Middle East.
Tributaries flowing from the Golan feed into the Sea of Galilee, which provides 30 percent of Israel’s water needs. The Golan is also the site of the headwaters of the Jordan River.
Water, along with security arrangements on the Golan and normalization of ties, have been at the center of the negotiations between the two countries.
Another round of talks in eastern Maryland is scheduled to begin Feb. 28. The Syrian and Israeli governments have said they want to pursue the peace talks even though Peres has called for early national elections.
Meanwhile, representatives of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, meeting Tuesday in Oslo, initialed an accord on regional water development.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry described the document, which is still subject to approval by the three governments, as a first of its kind.
The accord addresses the parties’ interests in jointly developing water resources, but it does not touch on the controversial issues of water rights and sharing of existing resources.
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