Iran criticizes Turkey’s dam-building efforts.

On Tuesday, Iran called upstream dam construction on shared waterways by Turkey “unacceptable,” and urged its neighbor to stop it.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying, “Turkey’s construction of dams on border waters is inappropriate, and we condemn it.”

“At least three times in the previous few months, during two face-to-face meetings in New York and Tehran, as well as a phone call with the Turkish foreign minister to voice our disapproval,” he told lawmakers.

He said, “I asked him to pay special attention to the construction of dams on the River Aras.”

While there is no bilateral agreement… on water cooperation, we urged the Turkish government four months ago to organize a bilateral committee on water to respond to issues in this domain, according to Amir-Abdollahian.

His comments come as Iran has experienced numerous droughts in recent years, owing in part to climate change and dam construction in neighboring nations.

But, like Turkey, Iran has built dams on shared rivers with Iraq, endangering access to water in that country.

Nonetheless, Turkey’s Aras dam has presented a special threat to Iran’s water supply.

Neither country is a party to the United Nations Watercourses Convention, which controls the use of transnational water resources and was signed in 1997.