Below is an article published by Gamoh, SANAM

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says that “the Lake Orumiyeh naturally dries every five hundred years." However, scientists doing research on the lake bed have discovered that this vast salt lake has not dried a single time in the past twenty seven thousand years. This shows that Ahmadinejad is talking in accordance with neither logic nor science.

Scientists studying behavior of lakes say that only those lakes which cause destruction to the community by uncontrolled flooding need to be controlled by constructing dams. The Orumiyeh Lake has not caused any flooding; it is in fact dying due to lack of water. However, the Iranian Regime is defying logic and science by having already created twenty nine dams and in the process of creating many more on the water routes which feed Lake Orumiyeh. Research by  scientists prove that one of the most important causes of the drying of Lake Orumiyeh is due to the unscientific construction of dams which stop the flow of many water routes to the lake.

This undemocratic regime has done nothing to stop the lake from drying. Scientists keep warning that within two to three years Lake Orumiyeh will completely dry and turn into a vast and deadly salt desert. The lake bed is covered with more than ten billion tons of salt. Having already started in smaller scales, salt tsunamis prove to be deadly both the environment and the more than fifteen million Southern Azerbaijani Turks who live in the region. Salt tsunamis will kill all the livestock; it will end farming, and cause approximately thirteen to fifteen million Southern Azerbaijani Turks to flee the region to save the lives of their families.

Lake Orumiyeh does not only belong to the Southern Azerbaijani Turks, it belongs to citizens of the world. This is an urgent situation, and if necessary measures are not taken to stop the lake from drying, the region will face an ecological disaster greater than that of the Aral Lake caused. Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement (SANAM), has explained to the UNPO and the UN that this issue is at the international level, and that help and cooperation is required by all relative organizations and governments to help stop more than ten billion tons of salt killing and destroying anything that comes across its path.

The world media and international organizations must not remain silent in this period of time. Thirty five million Southern Azerbaijani Turks are united in this cause and many peaceful protests have been made in many cities of Southern Azerbaijan. The world must explain to the Iranian Regime that Southern Azerbaijani Turks are not alone in this cause. SANAM hopes that the United Nations will put forward necessary measures to force Iran to stop its destructive policies, open its dams, and carry water to Lake Orumiyeh from the Caspian Sea.

SANAM has called for unification of all Southern Azerbaijani organizations within and outside of Southern Azerbaijan to unite for the cause to save Lake Orumiyeh. People of Southern Azerbaijan know that it is very difficult to even protest the policies of Iranian Regime, let alone ask for the most basic human-rights such as democracy and self-determination. For this apparent reason, international human rights organizations and world governments have to help more than thirty five million Southern Azerbaijani Turks in their peaceful quest for democracy.