DUSHANBE, April 28, 2009, Asia-Plus — President Emomali Rahmon departed for Almaty, Kazakhstan today morning to attend the next meeting of heads of state from member nations of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS), which groups all the five states of the region.
According to presidential press service, Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi, State Adviser to the President for International Matters Erkin Rahmatulloyev, Land Reclamation and Water Resources Minister Said Yoqubzod, and Chairman of the Committee for Environmental Protection Khursandmurod Zikirov are accompanying the president on his trip to Kazakhstan.
The meeting is considering issues related to activities of the IFAS’ bodies and expansion of cooperation with international organizations, financial institutions and donors.
The Aral Sea is a landlocked endorheic basin in Central Asia; it lies between Kazakhstan (Aktobe and Kyzylorda provinces) in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. Once the world”s fourth-largest saline body of water with an area of 68,000 km2, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s
, after the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects. By 2004, the sea had shrunk to 25% of its original surface area, and a nearly fivefold increase in salinity had killed most of its natural flora and fauna. By 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into three separate lakes.
The International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) is a interstate organization established by heads of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in 1993 in order to fund and credit joint regional environmental and research programs and projects aimed at saving the Aral Sea and improving the environmental situation in the areas affected by the disaster as well as solving regional socioeconomic problems.
In the meantime, the April 26 Reuters’ item titled “Central Asian leaders to gather for water summit” says the five leaders of Central Asian nations will hold a summit this week to try to end a bitter row over water use in one of the world”s driest regions. The dispute over cross-border water sharing in the vast region north of Afghanistan is a worry for its leaders who know how much stability in their ethnically diverse and potentially volatile nations depends on the scarce commodity.
The presidents of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will meet to discuss water use — the summit”s official agenda — and other pressing issues such as energy security and cooperation with the United States on cargo transit for troops fighting in Afghanistan, the article said.
“Expectations are high, even though no one expects them to sit down and solve everything in one day,” said Eduard Poletayev, an independent analyst in Kazakhstan. “It”s a step in the right direction, toward more integration. … It will make people realize further that water is one of the most important issues in Central Asia.”
The deficit of water resources that may in the future be in greater demand than petroleum and natural gas has already become a reality for many districts of the inner Eurasia,” Global Research, a Canadian-based think tank, said an April 23 note.
“The difference of interests of the ”upstream” and ”downstream” Central Asian countries that poses a threat of ending in an inter-state conflict is both a diplomatic and geopolitical challenge to Russia.”
Russia, which sees the region as part of its traditional sphere of interest, wants to invest in new hydro projects there and has sought to play a role in regional water talks, has not been invited to the summit.
