Southeastern Anatolia Project

The new Mardin-Ceylanpınar Irrigation Canal, which carries water from the Atatürk Dam in Şanlıurfa to Mardin in southeastern Türkiye, has brought water to agricultural land equivalent to the size of 70,000 football fields.

Within the scope of the Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP), a multi-sector integrated regional development project, the canal was completed and put into service.

An exhibition, titled "Mesopotamia," has been launched in Italy to promote the provinces in Türkiye's southeastern region.

The exhibition, which the Italian town of Orvieto hosted first, features underwater photographs from the different sites in the provinces of Gaziantep, Adıyaman and Şanlıurfa.

The newly opened Ilısu Prof. Dr. Veysel Eroğlu Dam will contribute 3 billion Turkish Liras to Turkey's economy annually, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Nov. 6.

The Turkish president on Nov. 6 inaugurated the Ilısu Dam in the country's southeastern province Mardin.

Its total water storage volume is 11 billion cubic meters and can generate 1,200 megawatts of hydroelectricity.

Turkey on May 19 commissioned the first tribune of the power plant at the Ilısu Dam on the Tigris River in the southeastern Mardin province. 

"The wind of peace, brotherhood and prosperity that will blow from the Ilısu Dam will be felt in these lands for centuries," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the ceremony which he attended via a video link.

The Harran Plain, one of the most important agricultural areas in Turkey, has been revived through the Southeastern Anatolia Project.       

Lying on the eastern bank of Euphrates River, the district of Halfeti is like a scene out of a Mesopotamian fairy tale. In the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, Halfeti is called "sunken city" in Turkish, as it submerges under water because of the Birecik Dam.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has dismissed an appeal against Turkey concerning the construction of the Ilısu dam in the southeastern Batman province's archeological site of Hasankeyf.

Works have been initiated to move the historic Artuklu bath to a new place in the new settlement of Hasankeyf, to prevent it from remaining underwater with the construction of the Ilısu Dam in the southeastern Turkish province of Batman. Click through for the story in photos...

An excavation in the Dargeçit district of the southeastern region of Turkey, which will soon be left under the reservoir waters of the Ilısu Dam, has revealed crucial information about the North Mesopotamian people's social life 10 millennia ago, particularly about burial rituals and the ancient belief in life after death.