TEHRAN — Iran’s president warned Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Thursday not to violate water rights of the Iranian people over their shared Helmand River, the official IRNA news agency reported.
President Ebrahim Raisi said his government is determined to defend Iran’s water rights.
“We will not allow the rights of our people to be violated,” he said and warned the Taliban to take his words seriously, emphasizing the importance of Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan into Iran.
Raisi spoke in a Pakistani border town on Thursday, during his first official visit to the neighboring country in 10 years, to inaugurate the first of six markets along the Iran-Pakistan border.
He also urged the Afghan Taliban to allow Iranian hydrologists to check the water levels of the river, which originates in the Afghan Hindu Kush mountain range.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 after the United States and NATO pulled out of the country following two decades of occupation.
Iranian officials have always stressed the importance of the implementation of the 1973 Helmand River treaty between Iran and Afghanistan, which envisions shared water resources.
Drought has been a problem in Iran for some 30 years, but has worsened over the past decade, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. The Iran Meteorological Organization says that an estimated 97% of the country now faces some level of drought.
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said Afghan officials had refused to allow Iranian experts to visit dams built on the Helmand River.
In a tweet posted in Farsi, Amir-Abdollahian said he has repeatedly called on acting Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi over the past months to let Iranian experts visit the dams and measure the volume of water.
He said political statements by Taliban authorities cannot help resolve the problem, adding the only solution is for Afghan officials to led Iranian technicians visit the dams.
Iran’s foreign ministry also rejected contradictory statements issued by Afghanistan’s governing body, saying the treaty between the two countries clearly pronounces Iran’s water right.
It stressed that Iran’s water right is a legal, objective and definite. Based on Article 5 of the treaty, it said, Afghanistan is committed to respecting Iran’s right and not taking any action to deprive the Islamic Republic of its right.
“Although over the last year and a half, the Afghan rulers have repeatedly emphasized adhering to their obligations according to the treaty, in practice, they have not implemented the obligations and have not provided the necessary cooperation in the release and supplying Iran’s rights,” the statement read.
Various justifications for not respecting Iran’s legal rights, including the issue of drought and water shortage in Helmand, require expert reviews and verification by Iranian experts, it added.
“The Islamic Republic has always underlined technical and research cooperation through water commissions of the two sides and has demanded a detailed investigation of the water situation in Helmand and supply of Iran’s water right based on the treaty.”
Iranian authorities’ positions regarding the Helmand water right are completely legal and based on the treaty, the ministry said.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to take necessary measures and emphasizes the full responsibility of Afghanistan in this regard,” it said.