Iran calls on Afghanistan not to impede flow of Hari River
The Iranian Foreign Ministry called on Afghanistan on Friday not to disrupt the flow of water to the country by building dams on the border rivers, stressing that maintaining relations between the two sides requires respect for mutual interests and avoiding harmful actions.
The ministry’s spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei emphasized the importance of bilateral agreements, principles of international rights and the rights of the people downstream of shared rivers, as well as the principle of good neighborliness in the two nations’ fair exploitation of the water resources from rivers that have flowed from Afghanistan to Iran for centuries due to the natural geography of the region.
Baghaei said that Iran’s Foreign Ministry has expressed its strong protest to the Afghan officials over the disproportionate curtailment of the waters entering Iran or the diversion of the natural course of rivers as the Islamic republic expects the eastern neighbor to take appropriate decisions in this regard.
Afghanistan has constructed a new dam on the Hari River (Harirud) – a move that could significantly reduce the flow of water to Iran’s eastern province of Khorasan Razavi, where over two million residents depend on the river for drinking water.
On Tuesday, the spokesman for Iran’s water industry Isa Bozorgzadeh said Afghanistan’s construction of a dam on the Harirud would affect the supply of drinking water for several million people and would lead to widespread damage to the downstream environment.
Bozorgzadeh said the construction of Pashdan Dam on the Harirud would lead to a decrease in the volume of water entering Iran – a move that would cause problems in supplying drinking water to Iran’s northeastern city of Mashhad.
The Iranian official said Tehran has repeatedly expressed its official protest against the consequences of the construction of a dam by the Afghan side on the Hari River and has called for joint cooperation to minimize the effects of such measures and choosing “sustainable development instead of destructive development.”
Iran and Afghanistan have been locked in a protracted water dispute which has been escalated after Taliban’s takeover of the country in 2021.
At the heart of the dispute is the Hilmand River, which originates in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Kabul and flows 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) south before flowing into Hamoun wetlands, located in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
The two countries signed a water-sharing accord on the Hilmand River in 1973, under which Afghanistan pledged to deliver an average of 820 million cubic meters of water per annum to Iran.
Iran has repeatedly criticized Afghanistan for failing to honor the agreement in letter and spirit.