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By Hans-Jurgen Schlamp, Daniel Steinvorth and Bernhard Zand

Frustrated by European opposition to its EU membership bid, Turkey is looking instead to its eastern and southern neighbors in a bid to flex its regional muscles. But will courting the Arab street actually bring Ankara any benefits?

At the Sutluce Cultural and Congress Center on the Golden Horn in Istanbul, experts and officials from around the world have come together to talk about water. The thousands attending the event include water experts, presidents and ministers, and they are here to talk about the Euphrates, the Nile and the Tigris, about major dams and about the privatization of entire rivers. One of mankind's future problems is being debated, and...