PKK, Turkey squabble over same dam issue
Turkey's extensive dam construction projects are threatened with attacks by the Kurdistan Workers Party, which sees the projects as destructive and only serving military objectives.
The governor of Diyarbakir issued a statement July 15 about an improvised explosive device attack against a military convoy on the road to the Silvan Dam, northeast of the city. The military vehicles sustained light damage, it read. At least 14 such statements have come from the governor’s office in the past three months.
Construction began on the Silvan Dam in 2011; it is expected to be the second-largest irrigation dam in the country after the Ataturk Dam. But the dam that will irrigate 245,300 hectares (606,149 acres) of agricultural land is in the news not because of its benefits but because of the frequent attacks on it. The governor’s statement also said “some groups are engaged in totally baseless, negative propaganda by labeling the works undertaken to improve the economic welfare of our people as works for military purposes,” alluding to the linkage between the Kurdish question and the dams.
