Abstract:
The South-eastern Anatolia Region has political, economic, commercial and strategically
importance as well as religious due to the fact that it has been used as settlement, and hosted for
divine religions. This region is on the historical Silk Road, and Turkey part of the Mesopotamia,
which means to the land between two rivers in Latin, composed of fertile soil and located in a
geographical place where the energy resources roads crosses. There have been significant delays
in the realization of the South-eastern Anatolia Project (GAP) due to the some external factors.
In this study, we discuss political, economic, and strategically importance of the GAP project. In
Turkey, background of the GAP is based on the Keban Dam Project in 1930s. GAP was firstly
planned as irrigation and hydroelectric power plant (HEPP) projects on the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers. This project was transformed to multipurpose regional development program after
1980s. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers represent over 28% of the nation’s water supply by
rivers, and the economically irrigable areas in the region make up 20% of those for the entry
country. Turkey has a total gross hydropower potential of 433 billion kWh/year, but only 125
billion kWh/year of the total hydroelectric potential of Turkey can be economically used. By the
construction of new hydropower plants, 36% of the economically usable potential of the country
would be tapped. The GAP region has a 22% share of the country’s total hydroelectric potential,
with plans for 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants, installed capacity with 7500 MW.
Once completed, 27 billion kWh of electricity will be generated annually. GAP also constitutes
21% irrigation potential of Turkey together with the irrigation area having approximately two
millions hectare.
