Iran Press/ Iran News: Addressing the issue of Iran's share of the Hirmand River's water, Mohammad Javanbakht told Iran Press in an interview that according to the agreement between the two countries signed in 1972 to meet the needs of the Iranians in Sistan and Baluchestan province for drinking water and agriculture, 820 million cubic meters of water per year is Iran's official right.
Mohammad Javanbakht said: "In the last two years, Iran has not received any effective water share, because a maximum of 4 million cubic meters of the 800 million cubic meters of water share mentioned in the agreement entered the country, so we call on Taliban to follow the agreement and also request that the Taliban delegation convey the message of our mutual meeting that Iran's water supply should be completely repaired."
"Naturally, we objected to this at our meeting, and we were not satisfied with the figures provided by the Taliban delegation from the catchment area, which is the basis of the calculations," he told IP on Thursday.
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He said that during a three-day meeting, the two sides discussed in detail the issue, so it was agreed that the Afghan delegation (Taliban) should convey the message of the meeting to their top officials as a serious request of the Islamic Republic of Iran to provide legal rights under the agreement between the two countries to let the water flow into Iran.
Javanbakht noted that the Ministry of Energy would seriously and continuously pursue the water supply issue and that the Taliban asked Iran's government to visit the Iranian water supply station in the upstream region.
He referred to the construction of Kamal Khan Dam last year and said the dam was built in Afghanistan near Iran's borders, through which a part of the Hirmand River's water was diverted to the Godzareh depression, which the Islamic Republic of Iran protested.
Godzareh is the lowest part of an inland drainage basin covering large parts of southern Afghanistan and Iran known as the Sistan Basin.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, he said, would pursue the issue in the Ministry of Energy within the technical and specialized framework.
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