KAZAKHSTAN: INTERNATIONAL FUND TO SAVE THE ARAL SEA HEAD

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASTANA 000482 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, OES/PCI E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON SENV AF ZK KZ SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: INTERNATIONAL FUND TO SAVE THE ARAL SEA HEAD DISCUSSES REGIONAL WATER COOPERATION ASTANA 00000482 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: Almabek Nurushev, Executive Director of the International Fund to Save the Aral Sea (IFAS),told us on March 12 that IFAS would like to fashion a bilateral Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan agreement on use of water resources. He maintained that the Interstate Coordination Water Commission (ICWC),the highest water decision-making body in the region, is unable to make binding decisions concerning the management of water resources. Uzbekistan is not likely soon to move away from cultivating cotton, wheat, and rice to other crops, Nurushev argued. IFAS is not in principle opposed to including Afghanistan in regional water cooperation, because it is a neighbor and also part of Central Asia. However, Nurushev contended that Afghanistan would have to agree with the other countries in Central Asia on how to use the water. END SUMMARY. IFAS INTERESTED IN KAZAKHSTAN-KYRGYZSTAN WATER AGREEMENT ¶3. (SBU) During a March 12 meeting in Almaty, International Fund to Save the Aral Sea (IFAS) Executive Director Almabek Nurushev told Regional Environmental Officer (REO) and a visiting State Department official that he has been working with IFAS from the date of its founding 15 years ago, and said he knows all sides of the issues related to regional water resources and the Aral Sea. He said the IFAS Executive Committee, rotating between the various Central Asian capitals, has been located in Almaty since November 2008. Previously, it was in Dushanbe during 2004-08. ¶4. (SBU) Nurushev stressed that in Central Asia, "if there is no water, there is no life." The city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan is essentially a desert, he said, and when it was founded, the Soviets put a soldier to guard each planted tree, illustrating how difficult it is to cultivate the desert and how scarce water is. Nurushev said desertification has become the order of the day in many regions, and this was one reason why so many water basins were created, including man-made basins. Some served specific purposes, such as the Toktogul Basin in Kyrgyzstan, which was supposed to hold water in the winter to be released for spring irrigation. Nurushev said that one of IFAS's goals is to craft an agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan that will resolve their bilateral water problems. It would also like to develop general guidelines for managing Central Asian water resources, drawing upon experiences of cooperation in other parts of the world, such as cooperation in the utilization of Indochina's Mekong River. ICWC NOT ABLE TO MAKE BINDING DECISIONS ¶5. (SBU) Nurushev noted that the Interstate Coordination Water Commission (ICWC) is the principal organization for the rational utilization and protection of trans-boundary water resources in Central Asia. Despite the fact that it is the highest decision-making body on water, it currently has no legal or enforcement powers, he argued. In 1992, the ICWC had five vice ministers on its executive committee, one from each of the Central Asian countries, and they were empowered to make major decisions that could be implemented. But now only two countries (Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) have vice ministers on the committee. Kazakhstan's representative is the chairman of its Committee on Water Resources. Kyrgyzstan has a representative from its Ministry of Agriculture's Department of Water Resources. And Uzbekistan is represented by a deputy minister for water resources from its Ministry of Agriculture who does not have any decision-making authority. According to Nurushev, these representatives have no power to make binding decisions concerning the management of water resources. ALTERNATIVE CROPS NOT LIKELY ¶6. (SBU) Nurushev noted that Uzbekistan uses 80 percent of the water from the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya rivers, mostly for agriculture. The Amu-Darya, the main source of water for the southern and eastern ASTANA 00000482 002.2 OF 003 Aral Sea, is split 50-50 between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. There is virtually no water from the Amu-Darya that reaches the Aral Sea. If this continues, he said, the southern and eastern Aral Sea will soon disappear. (COMMENT: Last fall, during a trip to the Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan, REO personally witnessed a very low level of water flow in the furthest downstream part of the Amu-Darya. END COMMENT.) ¶7. (SBU) NOTE: In contrast to the plight of the southern-eastern portion of the Aral Sea, the World Bank and Kazakhstan have managed to restore part of the northern Aral Sea by means of the Kok-Aral Dike, constructed to separate the two seas and maintain the integrity of the northern sea, which lies entirely within Kazakhstan. As a result, water levels have risen, salinity levels have reduced, fish production has increased, and the ecosystem has been partially restored. END NOTE. ¶8. (SBU) Nurushev said that Uzbekistan, traditionally a large cotton producer, has considered the question of introducing alternative crops since the 1960s. However, for Uzbekistan, cotton is a strategic commodity. (NOTE: The Soviets decided to develop large-scale cotton monoculture during the Cold War, when it feared that the West would cut it off from imported cotton supplies. END NOTE.) He did not think it likely that Uzbekistan would soon move away from cotton, wheat, and rice to other crops. Instead, he said, all of the Central Asian countries continue to research methods to become more efficient and reduce the amount of water used in irrigation of existing crops. SOVIET UNION PLANNED TO DIVERT RIVERS TO SAVE ARAL SEA ¶9. (SBU) Nurushev noted that the Soviet Union had initially made a decision to save the Aral Sea which involved diverting water from the Volga, Ob, and Irtysh rivers in Siberia. However, that project never made much headway, and Gorbachev eventually cancelled it. Now the five Central Asian countries are stuck with the Aral Sea problem. (NOTE: There is still occasional talk in Russia of diverting rivers to save the Aral Sea, with Moscow Mayor Luzhkov leading the charge. It's extremely unlikely this will ever move beyond talk, and that might be for the better. Some of those Russian rivers, such as the Tom River, an Ob tributary, are among the world's most polluted water sources. END NOTE.) AFGHANS NEED CENTRAL ASIAN AGREEMENT TO USE PANJ RIVER ¶10. (SBU) Nurushev said that IFAS is not in principle opposed to including Afghanistan in water regional cooperation, because it is a neighbor and also a part of greater Central Asia. He noted that IFAS had invited Afghanistan to participate in the 2006 Water for Life conference in Dushanbe. He agreed that Afghanistan should also share in Central Asian regional water resources. Nurushev said that as Afghanistan begins to develop its economy and agriculture in its northern region along the Tajikistan border, it would inevitably draw off water from the Panj River -- a tributary of the Amu-Darya that forms much of the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan -- and would thus reduce the overall amount of water available to Central Asia. He said bluntly that Afghanistan would have to agree with the other countries in Central Asia on how to use this water. International conventions are not the only constraint, he said. There is also Islamic law, according to which upstream users need permission from downstream users for their water usage. DOUBTS ABOUT OUR EFFORTS IN AFGHANISTAN ¶11. (SBU) When asked if the United States can succeed in Afghanistan, Nurushev waxed historical and noted that when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Margaret Thatcher predicted that the Soviets would be stuck there for 300 years. "The Soviets failed," he said, "why should the United States think it is any different?" He then expressed some prejudices that are not uncommon in Central Asia, saying that the Afghan people only know how to fight, not work. They know narco-business very well and have ASTANA 00000482 003.2 OF 003 "Godfather"-like leadership structures (referring to the movie). Nurushev said, "Only 'civilized people' should sell drugs. If you allow others (e.g., Afghans),then the result will only be a catastrophe." HOAGLAND