The Role of GAP Project in Hydropolitics of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers Basin

Today, water is considered as a way of survival and gaining power. The upstream countries of the international rivers are thinking about managing the water that comes out of their soil, as the GAP project in Turkiye is an example. The present study seeks to answer the question of what is the role of the GAP project in the hydropolitics of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and what is Turkiye’s strategy for the implementation of this project? The results of the present study, based on the theoretical approach of hydraulicity, show that Turkiye, as a hydro-hegemonic country upstream of the Tigris and Euphrates transboundary rivers, has adopted a unilateral (self-interpretive) strategy in the pattern of hydropolitical relations with other watersheds in the basin. Therefore, strengthening water diplomacy with a conciliatory approach in the hydropolitical relations of the countries of the region, changing the military and security attitude to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to an interactive and cooperative attitude, reforming and developing the hydropolitical relations of the basin countries for bilateral or multilateral negotiations are important.