DUSHANBE, April 7, 2010, Asia-Plus — UN chief’s appeal to leaders of Central Asia’s countries to jointly seek mutually acceptable solution to the problem of use water-and-energy resources in the region is just advisory in nature and solution of the problem depends on political will of the sate leaders, Tajik political scientist Davlat Usmon said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“The practice of preventive diplomacy is an action to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and the United Nations and other authoritative international organizations join in the process of settlement of such disputes at the early stage of escalation of the disputes,” said the political scientist, “Such a conflict is arising today between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and one of purposes of Mr. Ban’s visit to the region is in preventing further deterioration of relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.”
The expert, however, considers that there ought not to expect any immediate solution to the water-and-energy from that visit. “Solution to this problem depends directly on political will of leaders of our countries,” Usmon said
He noted that under the current conditions, negotiations between leaders of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan over that problem were possible only through intermediary of authoritative international organizations and countries having strong influence in the region, for example Russia.
We will recall that during his tour of five Central Asia’s countries, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the countries of the region to cooperate in ensuring rational use of water resources. Mr. Ban mentioned the UN”s Regional Center for Preventative Diplomacy in Central Asia (UNRCCA) as a vehicle for helping tackle the Central Asian water problems.
