...is it a coincidence; more weaponisation of water,
Kurdish officials say that, after Ankara's military campaign in October, there was an initial deal for the Turks to ensure continued water supply from Alouk, in exchange for the Kurds providing electricity to newly taken areas.
But the Turks have been trying to exert pressure on the Kurds to give them more electricity, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor and a Kurdish official.
The Turks repeatedly "ask for more electricity," said Suzdar Ahmad, the joint head of the Kurdish-run water authority.
Aheen Sweid, co-director of the energy authority, said the water cuts were nothing new.
"Since the Turks occupied Ras al-Ain there have been endless rounds of negotiations over water interruptions from Alouk," she said.
This time, around 10 days after the taps ran dry in Hasakeh, on August 13 the Kurds cut off the electricity to the Ras al-Ain area in retaliation, Sweid said.
Both sides then negotiated via Russia -- an ally of Syria's central government in the country's complex civil war -- and on Saturday they came to an agreement that envisaged water making its way back to Hasakeh's pipes from Monday.
But Syria analyst Nicholas Heras said the water cuts were likely to continue in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
"Seizing the Alouk plant was one of Turkey's key campaign goals" in October last year, he said, "exactly because Turkey wants to use water as a pressure point to turn local people in Hasakeh against the SDF."
Ankara now held the "ability to cut water indefinitely to over half a million water-starved people" in Kurdish-held areas, representing a far more effective weapon than retaliatory power cuts, he said.
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/In_n ... r_999.html...and another more recent article,
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origin ... sakeh.html
