Armenian-Turkish commission on use of Akhuryan and Araks rivers holds  first meeting in Yerevan 

ArmInfo. The first joint meeting of the Armenian-Turkish commission on the joint use of the Akhuryan and Araks rivers was held in Yerevan.

According to the press service of the Water Committee of Armenia, a  meeting between representatives of the permanent Armenian-Turkish  commissions on transboundary water resources management, "Operation  of the Sardarapat Regulator" and "Operation of the Akhuryan  Reservoir," was held first at the border crossing point between  Armenia and Turkey and then in the administrative building of Jrar  CJSC.  According to Tigran Vardanyan, Director of Jrar CJSC, the  documents signed during the meeting were drawn up on mutually  beneficial terms. Furthermore, it is noted that the parties reached  important agreements as a result of the meeting.

As a reminder, back in 1927, the USSR and Turkey signed a convention  on the use of the waters of the border rivers Akhuryan and Araks.  According to this convention, each party is entitled to 50% of the  total water flow of these rivers and their tributaries. Article 5 of  this convention specifically stipulates that even if one of the  parties builds reservoirs on these rivers or their tributaries,  tributaries, it should ultimately not absorb more than 50% of the  total water flow. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this  division remained in effect. It's worth noting that in recent years,  Turkey has built reservoirs in the Akhuryan and Araks basins with a  total capacity of 1.3 billion cubic meters. If we add half of the  border Akhuryan reservoir to this, the total comes to 1.5 billion,  which is already more than half.