Euphrates River flowing, Ankara says

BAGHDAD, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Ankara said it would increase the flow of water from the Euphrates River in exchange for Iraqi support in the fight against Kurdish rebels, officials said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, said during a meeting in Baghdad with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu that resolving the issue of regional water was a primary bilateral concern, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

Turkey had reduced the flow of water from the Euphrates to its southern neighbors, including Syria, in recent years to feed its hydroelectric dams. Iraq, for its part, faces a tough future for its agricultural sector as it copes with its fourth year of drought.

Davutoglu said Ankara was slowly increasing the flow of water from the Euphrates in an effort to ease the burden on Turkey's southern neighbors.

"The suffering of the farmers in any region of Iraq is the suffering of the Turkish farmers themselves," he said.

The move is part of a broader effort on the part of Ankara to increase its regional standing while attempting to find a political solution to its own lingering issues with the Kurdish minority.

Meanwhile, Zebari said the Iraqi government was in favor of efforts to react to Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, who use the Kurdish territories to wage a guerrilla campaign.