Turkey and Syria, mainly over the waters of the Euphrates River, are in a serious escalation of hostilities, which could lead to an all-out conflict between the two nations. Turkey, with the completion of the GAP project, plans to fully utilize its share of the Euphrates river, which is the only reliable source of running water for Syria. Syria needs the waters of the Euphrates river to continue its irrigation programs and to keep the water levels high in the Assad Lake in order to sustain the hydroelectric production. Political status regarding this situation deteriorated rapidly during the 1980s, when Turkey finalized its plans for the GAP and began constructing it. Syria, worried about becoming totally dependent on Turkish control of the river, engaged in certain activities that targeted to create instability in Turkey.[30] Among those was supporting the PKK in its campaign against the Turkish government. As a response, Turkey decided to use the water issue as a bargaining point against Hafez Assad, which eventually backfired. The Syrian support of the PKK continued and Turkey acknowledged a deal with Syria, which promised a 500m3/s water to Syria in exchange of an end to Syrian support of the PKK.[31] Unfortunately, Assad one more time proved to be unreliable and the relations between the two countries deteriorated at a constant pace.