Tabqa Awaits Comprehensive Solution to Syria

A view shows part of the northern part of the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River, Syria March 28, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo
A view shows part of the northern part of the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River, Syria March 28, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo
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Tabqa Awaits Comprehensive Solution to Syria

A view shows part of the northern part of the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River, Syria March 28, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo
A view shows part of the northern part of the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River, Syria March 28, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

Eng. Hikmat Haswa, 59, director general of the Euphrates Dam, tells how the members of ISIS, before the fighting ended in May last year, set fire to the central command room and blew up the eight electric units.

As a result, the station went out of service and the dam was at great risk. He told Asharq Al-Awsat: “At that time, maintenance workers and dam employees made tremendous efforts to save this facility. Today, everyone is keen to bring back the natural capacity of the dam as it was before 2011.”

Established in 1995, the Euphrates Dam - also known as Tabqa Dam - is one of the most important dams in Syria and the first hydroelectric plant in the country. It generates 880 MW per working hour when all of its eight units are functioning. Each unit has a capacity of about 110 MW.

Since his graduation from the Electrical Engineering Faculty at the University of Aleppo in 1982, Hikmat Haswa worked in the dam and currently serves as the General Manager of the Euphrates Dam Facility. After the liberation of the facility from the grip of ISIS, he returned to work with a few former employees, who were able to run Unit 8, which feeds the needs of the dam.

In September last year, Unit 3 was reactivated, while Unit 1 began operating few months later. “There are three units, out of eight, working 24 hours a day,” according to Haswa.

Eng. Ali Al-Rawi, 33, who graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Aleppo University in 2010, started to work at the Euphrates Dam the same year. He is currently the chief dam engineer and chief automation officer.

He noted that the level of water at the Euphrates Dam lake has dramatically decreased.

“Currently, the lake does not feed more than two units 24 hours a day. Each unit generates between 105 and 110 MW.” Each unit needs 250 cubic meters of water per second, “but the quantity of water is not enough to feed all the units,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Well-informed sources said that initial talks were launched between Tabqa’s civil administration and the Syrian regime. The latter sent a delegation to visit the dam earlier this month that included engineers, technicians and maintenance workers, to fix and operate the dam, requesting security protection by the regime forces.

“However, the Syrian Democratic Forces and Tabqa’s local council refused the demand and promised the delegation protection by the local police,” the sources said.

The sources confirmed that the Directorate of Dams under the Ministry of Water Resources in the Syrian regime opened an official office at the dam location, noting that the majority of regime employees have returned to work.

In order to rehabilitate and reactivate the Euphrates Dam, Tabqa’s civil administration agreed with the regime delegation to return all the employees and experts to their work, in exchange for securing the spare parts and the operation of the dam again.



Libya Receives Invitation from Greece to Maritime Zone Talks to Ease Strained Ties

Children play by the tents, as recently arrived migrants shelter at the temporary migrants' camp staged on a soccer pitch in the region of Rethymno in Crete island, Greece, June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis/File Photo
Children play by the tents, as recently arrived migrants shelter at the temporary migrants' camp staged on a soccer pitch in the region of Rethymno in Crete island, Greece, June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis/File Photo
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Libya Receives Invitation from Greece to Maritime Zone Talks to Ease Strained Ties

Children play by the tents, as recently arrived migrants shelter at the temporary migrants' camp staged on a soccer pitch in the region of Rethymno in Crete island, Greece, June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis/File Photo
Children play by the tents, as recently arrived migrants shelter at the temporary migrants' camp staged on a soccer pitch in the region of Rethymno in Crete island, Greece, June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Stefanos Rapanis/File Photo

Greece has invited Libya's internationally recognized government in Tripoli to start talks on demarcating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said late on Wednesday.

The move is aimed at mending relations between the two neighbors, strained by a controversial maritime deal signed in 2019 between the Libyan government and Türkiye, Greece's long-standing foe, which mapped out a sea area close to the Greek island of Crete.

"We invite - and I think you may soon see progress in this area - we invite the Tripoli government to discuss with Greece the delimitation of a continental shelf and an exclusive economic zone," Mitsotakis told local Skai television, Reuters reported.

Greece this year launched a new tender to develop its hydrocarbon resources off Crete, a move that Libya has objected to, saying some of the blocks infringed its own maritime zones.

Law and order has been weak in Libya since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the country divided by factional conflict into eastern and western sections for over a decade.

Therefore, any communication with Libya was not easy, Mitsotakis said. He indicated that Greece was determined to continue talking to both the Tripoli-based government and a parallel administration based in Benghazi.

In recent months, Athens has sought closer cooperation with Libya to help stem a surge in migrant arrivals from the North African country to Greece's southern islands of Gavdos and Crete and passed legislation banning migrants arriving from Libya by sea from requesting asylum.

In an incident earlier this month, the European Union migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece were denied entry to the eastern part of divided Libya, shortly after meeting the internationally recognized government that controls the west of Libya.