Water transported from Turkey via the undersea pipeline to the north began to flow in the Morphou area’s irrigation system on Wednesday following the completion of the latest phase of the ‘water master plan’ to supply the north with water from Turkey.
Water from Turkey will also begin to flow in the Mesaoria plain’s irrigation pipes on Thursday.
As the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel explained, “an enormous tunnel, 5.7 kilometres in length, was built by Turkish engineers within the scope of the Morphou and Mesaoria plain irrigation project, which is the second stage of the water transmission project”.
Ustel also expressed his “endless gratitude” to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and vice president Cevdet Yilmaz, whose visit to the island coincided with the turning on of the taps.
He went on to speak about how the project of transporting water from Turkey to Cyprus had first been suggested in the 1960s, with various attempts made between the 1990s and the present day to transport water to the north.
“Time has proven right not those who oppose this project, but those who, like us, advocate for its implementation. Nowadays, I am very excited and happy to see that the first stages of the agricultural irrigation phase, which is the second largest phase of the project after the drinking water phase, have been completed, not only as prime minister but also as a Turkish Cypriot,” he said.
He described the project as the “project of the century”.