The World Water Forum has brought 20,000 people from more than 130 countries to the triennial event. The forum is in a renovated Ottoman building, and city fathers have spared no expense, but not everyone convening in the city shares the intentions of the organizers, which I found out on my taxi ride along the shore of the fabled Golden Horn.

My driver, Yilmaz, after informing me that Iraq was "fena harb" (bad war) and President Obama "iyi adam" (good man), told me the authorities had deployed 3,000 riot police around the center. We got stuck in traffic under the Galata Bridge immediately before reaching the Sutluce district, where I saw about 150 demonstrators.

The Anadolu Ajansi news agency subsequently reported that at least 17 people were arrested after police used tear gas to try to break up the group I saw, which had tried to march to the congress venue. Nothing, it seems, will be allowed to disrupt the proceedings.

The success of the forum is critical for its Turkish hosts not only for prestige, as the gathering also provides opportunities to meet with major funding sources. In the global economic downturn, outside funding would prove very useful for Turkey to complete some major projects, but it will have increased competition for that revenue at the forum.

Besides its water allowing the country to grow agricultural surpluses, generating ever increasing amounts of hydroelectric power is also key to the country's economic development, and has been since the nation emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. The centerpiece of Turkey's hydroelectric ambitions is its massive Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi (Southeastern Anatolia Project, or GAP), begun in 1977. GAP, managed by the Devlet Su Isleri Genel Mudurlugu (General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works), is designed to develop the water resources of southeastern Anatolia, home to most of Turkey's Kurds and historically the nation's most impoverished region, which stretches across more than 28,500 square miles of Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Mardin, Adiyaman, Batman, Kilis, Sirnak and Suirt provinces.

GAP is a high priority for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's administration, which last year provided $15 billion in funding, maintaining that GAP's completion will lead to the creation of 4 million new jobs. The total cost for the complex is projected at $32 billion.

Besides its economic benefits, GAP has an avowed political aim, to lessen the regional appeal of the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK), a leftist organization that has been waging a 30-year terrorist campaign in the southeast of the country, where the unemployment rate is twice the national average. In late 2005 the Milli Guvenlik Kurulu (National Security Council, or MGK) incorporated development plans for the region as an integral part of its broader campaign against the PKK into its "Action Plan to Combat Terrorism."

Lest anyone be in doubt over Ankara's perception of the nexus between development and its war on terror, on Dec. 11, 2007, the Hurriyet newspaper quoted Minister of State and Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek as saying, "We have spent $300 billion fighting terrorism so far. That is equivalent to 10 GAPs. If this money had not been spent fighting terrorism, it could have been used for internal development and improving the country's standard of living."

GAP is designed to exploit southeastern Turkey's water and soil resources, where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers represent 28 percent of Turkey's water supply by rivers, and where 20 percent of the entire country's irrigable agricultural areas are found. Once completed, 1.82 million new hectares of agricultural land will be irrigated by various GAP installations.

While GAP originally was scheduled for completion next year, financial difficulties and inflation have delayed its implementation. Specialists from Turkey's State Hydraulic Works, or DSI, report that when GAP is fully complete, 28.5 percent of Turkey's total water potential will be harnessed via 22 dams and hydroelectric facilities, 14 along the Euphrates and eight situated on the Tigris, irrigating 20 percent of the country's total irrigable land, while GAP's installed energy capacity of 7,476 megawatts eventually will produce 27 billion kilowatt hours annually, 22 percent of Turkey's total yearly energy production.

If GAP is regarded by Ankara as crucial to the development of its impoverished southeast, GAP's focus on massive developments on the Tigris and Euphrates, whose headwaters Turkey dominates, has its downstream neighbors Syria and Iraq greatly concerned.

Whatever the complaints of its neighbors, Turkey sees major hydrological and hydroelectric projects as critical to its future development, with 504 dams of all sizes now in operation in Turkey. To regulate the country's rivers and make full use of them, the DSI has concluded that the country needs a total of 805 dams and 485 hydroelectric power plants, an ambitious program that doubtless will be at the center of future diplomatic discussions between Ankara, Baghdad and Damascus.

It will be an interesting week, as not everyone believes that the country's hydroelectric ambitions are a good thing, especially Turkey's Greens. Not all the networking is going to be occurring in the Sutluce conference center.

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