Uzbekistan Wednesday warned world powers of a looming environmental disaster from Tajikistan's plan to build a huge hydro-electric dam, in a new show of tensions between the ex-Soviet neighbors.
Uzbekistan
Wednesday warned world powers of a looming environmental disaster from
Tajikistan
's
plan to build a huge hydro-electric dam, in a new show of tensions between the
ex-Soviet neighbors.
Tashkent
also accused
Tajikistan
's
main aluminum plant, the largest in
Central Asia
and
located near
Uzbekistan
's
southern border, of causing increased fluorine-related diseases among the
population and millions of dollars of damage to its agriculture.
"Thoughtless management of transborder rivers, construction of
environmentally harmful industrial projects made during the second half of the
last century put our region on the verge of environmental disaster," Uzbek
President Islam Karimov said in a message to an international conference that
opened in
Tashkent
.
The conference gathered more than 100 environmental experts from over 30
countries, including the
U.S.
and
members of the European Union.
The issues on the agenda highlights the increasingly tense relations between
the two Central Asian states, which have been at odds on a number of issues for
almost two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Mountainous
Tajikistan
has
pledged to move ahead unilaterally in the construction of the Rogun dam, which
was first conceived as a gigantic Soviet hydro-electric power project.
Tajikistan
, the
poorest of the ex-Soviet republics of
Central Asia
, sees
Rogun as a means of solving its chronic energy shortages while at the same time
allowing it to become a net exporter of electricity.
Uzbekistan
warns
that the Rogun dam is located in a highly seismic zone and could endanger
millions of lives in downstream countries if natural or technical disasters
occur.
Tashkent
also fears the dam will
damage its vital cotton industry, which depends on water which flows in from
Tajikistan
and
Kyrgyzstan
, and
impact millions of Uzbeks living downstream.
"This is a political issue. There is a need for state-level discussions
involving all of the countries in the region," a top international official
attending the conference told AFP, asking not to be named.
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