Tigris and Euphrates rivers have been the most valuable resources in the Mesopotamian region for thousands of years. The countries that both rivers run through, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, benefit from them in various fields. With such a resource being shared between multiple countries, conflicts will undoubtedly arise and it will require cooperation and negotiations to reach a solution and prevent further trouble.

Before 1960, Turkey did not have any plans to take advantage of using the rivers, thus there were no disputes between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, but the initiation of unilateral irrigation plans that started in the 60s and the 70s changed that.

In the 70s, Turkey had a program called Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) that was intended to develop water solutions for the region located in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin and upper Mesopotamia plains and was planned to create 22 dams and 19 Hydro-Electric Powerplants HEPP, and irrigation investments that would have an installed capacity of 7,476 MW with annual energy production of 27 billion kilowatt-hours.

The master plan designed in 1988 turned GAP into a regional development project after envisaging investments in agriculture, industry, transportation, education, health, and rural-urban infrastructure.

One essential part of this project is the Ataturk Dam which is located on the Euphrates river in Bozova, Şanlıurfa, south-east Turkey. Its construction lasted from 1983 to 1990. This dam is considered one of the largest dams in the country and is ranked the sixth largest earth-and-rock fill embankment dam in the world with its power generation capacity of 2,400MW.

It is indicated that "GAP will double Turkey’s irrigation land and hydroelectricity production and also increase the per capita income in the region by 50%."

This project has received political dissatisfaction from Iraq and Syria for the large decrease in the flow of the Euphrates. The three countries even initiated talks to negotiate on a water institution for solving the issue of sharing the Euphates-Tigris water.

UN predicted that the decrease of the flow of Euphrates and Tigris to Syria and Iraq by 30% and 60% respectively until the end of the century will cause the amount of water flowing through both countries become scarcer.