Water co-operation between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan discussed at OSCE-supported international conference
BISHKEK, 17 September 2015 - A two-day OSCE-supported international conference focusing on 15 years of an agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan on the use of the shared water management facilities along the Chu and Talas rivers, concluded today in Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan.
More than 100 representatives of ministries and agencies from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, along with the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS), and international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), GIZ, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation attended the event.
"Water is a strategic resource and an essential element of national and regional security, which is equally important for all countries in the Central Asian region,” said Yulia Minaeva, Senior Officer at the OSCE Centre in Bishkek. “It is important to make water a resource for co-operation as opposed to competition."
The meeting agenda included the 67th session of the Interstate Commission for Water Сo-ordination of Central Asia and the 20th session of the Chu-Talas Water Commission as well as a meeting of experts on environmental monitoring of the Chu and Talas rivers timed to coincide with the jubilee conference.
Participants examined the lessons learnt by the Chu-Talas Commission and the further prospects for improving water co-operation in the basin of these rivers.
The conference was organized with the support of the UNDP’s Enabling Trans-boundary Co-operation and International Water Resources Management in Chu-Talas River Basins’ Project.