“Thanks to” Turkey, Armenia’s Ararat Valley could have water problem – newspaper

YEREVAN. – Armenia’s Ararat Valley could face a serious water problem, Haykakan Zhamanak daily reports.  

“The reason is that Turkey is constructing 1.5-billion-cubic-meter-capacity reservoirs at the upper parts of Arax River, [but] not near the border [with Armenia].   

Chairman Vladimir Movsisyan of the [Armenian Presidential] Expert Committee on Protection of Lake Sevan said 88 million cubic meters of water is already collected from Arax River in these reservoirs, [and] the construction of the others is in progress.    

‘Today the average annual water capacity of Arax River constitutes 2,200,000,000 [cubic meters]. If we reduce two billion by 1.5 billion, Ararat Plain would have serious water problems. The [Armenian] government has set up two committees in this direction. We are preparing our proposals and carrying out counter measures, so that we would not have a water problem in the Arax River basin,’ Vladimir Movsisyan said,” Haykakan Zhamanak writes.