Regional Cooperation Between Iran and Western Neighbors based on Water Diplomacy (Case Study: Iraq and Turkey)

The limitations in fresh waters worldwide and the daily increasing growth in water consumption have caused water to be turned into an arena of competition between the countries. Thus, the quality of water apportionment in the transregional rivers as well as exploitation of the common waters need a sort of action enabling the replacement of the interactions and relations with competition. Due to the same reason, diplomacy is one of the most important and less costly means of foreign policy and interaction between the states and it can play an important role for reducing the tensions and solving the water-related disputes. The present study aims at regional cooperation between Iran, Turkey and Iraq based on water diplomacy. According to the international regulations and considering the obligations and contracts as well as the bi- or multilateral negotiations, water diplomacy can play an important role in line with goals like sense of adjacency, common interests and economic growth for regional convergence and interactions. The study has been conducted based on library research with a descriptive-analytical approach and takes advantage of SPSS analytical software. The results indicated that possession of an active and effective diplomacy and using a comprehensive and exact management enables the solidarization of the interactions and collaborations and prevention of the future tensions and disputes