Uzbek Overtures to Kazakstan on Water Dispute

   

Tashkent is seeking allies in its campaign to block Kyrgyz and Tajik river projects.

By Galiaskar Utegulov in Almaty, Aslibegim Manzarshoeva in Dushanbe and Aida Kasymalieva in Bishkek (RCA No. 574, 27-Apr-09)

When the five Central Asian presidents gather in the Kazak city of Almaty on April 28, top of the official agenda will be the fate of the shrinking Aral Sea.

However, it seems likely they will spend much of their time disputing how to manage the water resources their states share, and the closely related issue of energy.

One key question that the summit may answer is whether Uzbekistan is succeeding in getting Kazak leaders on side in its efforts to obstruct hydroelectric dam projects in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

All five presidents turned up for a rare meeting formally held in order to to discuss progress and structural issues around the International Fund to Save the Aral Sea, IFAS, a common body set up by the Central Asian states in 1993.

Commentators point to an emerging consolidation of the downstream states – oil-and gas-rich Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan – against their two smaller neighbours Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The latter states, in whose mountains Central Asia’s two great rivers rise, are keen to address their chronic energy shortages by adding more hydroelectric power stations to those they already have. This strategy makes the other three states anxious that damming up waterways will deprive them of water for agriculture and other uses.

All five leaders periodically speak of the need for a common strategy to distribute water fairly, and compensate Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan accordingly with supplies of oil, gas and coal, but the issue has never been conclusively resolved since they became independent states in 1991.

Analysts say a divide between the two states with water and the three with fuel reserves would be extremely unhelpful, and would obstruct any kind of mutually beneficial outcome as well as wider political relationships between the five.

Kyrgyzstan is planning to build two schemes called Kambarata-1 and Kambarata-2 on the Naryn river, where it already has a major hydropower dam, Toktogul. The Naryn is a major tributary of the Syr Darya, which runs through Tajik and Uzbek territory to reach Kazakstan, where it dries up before it even reaches the Aral Sea. Tajikistan wants to complete the giant Roghun hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Amu Darya, which again goes through Uzbekistan, and also supplies Turkmenistan through a major arterial canal.

To complicate the regional politics of water, Russia has promised to invest in both the Kambarata and Roghun projects.

Both Kazakstan and Turkmenistan have good reason to worry about water flows from these two rivers. Turkmenistan is a largely desert country and water is vital to its population as well as to its cotton industry. Southern Kazakstan, meanwhile, suffers intermittent shortages of water when the Kyrgyz fill up reservoirs to generate power over the winter, and then endures flooding when they dump excess water.

It is Uzbekistan, however, which complains most vociferously about plans to create new dams on both rivers. It has the largest population in the region and its commercial agriculture is focused on producing cotton, a lucrative source of export revenues but a thirsty crop. Many analysts blame the Soviet authorities’ unchecked expansion of cotton production using wasteful irrigation methods for the catastrophic decline in the Aral’s waters.

Tashkent has proposed that major hydroelectric projects be made subject to tougher technical requirements, and preceded by internationally-run feasibility studies.

Traditionally, Uzbekistan has tended to go it alone in pressing its concerns, using the natural gas it supplies to the Tajiks and Kyrgyz as leverage.

But in recent months the Uzbeks have shown a definite will to engage Turkmenistan and latterly also Kazakstan in opposing the Roghun and Kambarata projects.

During a visit to Tashkent in late February, Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov threw his weight behind the Uzbek position that energy projects on Central Asia’s transnational waterways should not happen unless the inte+rests of all states are taken into account, as well as the environmental impact on the region.

That leaves Kazakstan the only state that has not publicly stated its opposition to the Kyrgyz and Tajik power schemes. Relations between Kazakstan and Uzbekistan, the giants of the region, have been difficult over the years, in part because each suspects the other of aspirations to regional leadership.

However, there are signs that Uzbek president Islam Karimov has been making overtures to his Kazak counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev on the water issue. The two men had a phone conversation on April 2, which an otherwise official statement said touched on water and energy as well as the usual niceties.

The following day, Kazakstan’s prime minister Karim Masimov visited Tashkent and met Karimov. Analysts read this as a clear sign that the two leaderships were comparing notes ahead of the Aral summit. A joint statement issued afterwards was quite explicit, saying the two countries planned to “present a united front on the water issue”.

Less than two weeks later, the Uzbek foreign ministry published a press release on its website restating the government’s official view on Kyrgyz and Tajik energy plans, which it said “pursue commercial interests and far-reaching political objectives, but disregard the possible consequences, and ignore the concerns of the neighbouring states”.

Uzbekistan’s position, it said, was that “any large-scale construction projects [on] trans-boundary rivers requires the endorsement of all countries in the region”.

Predictably, Kyrgyz and Tajik leaders have reacted to such statements with animosity. In an annual address to parliament on April 15, Tajik president Imomali Rahmon dismissed as “groundless” claims that hydroelectric schemes will reduce water flows and harm the environment. Two days later, Kyrgyzstan’s Kurmanbek Bakiev accused unspecified “other countries” of trying to “gain control over our strategic resources”.

Ahead of the Almaty meeting, officials from Kazakstan and Uzbekistan were not giving much away. Kazak foreign ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov told IWPR to wait for the meeting itself, where proposals would be put on the table, including by Kazakstan.

The Uzbek embassy in Kazakstan refused to comment, saying merely that water experts were very busy at the moment.

Many analysts across the region fear the consequences of a split between those states that control the water, and the others whose populations depend on a steady supply.

“If Kazakstan and Uzbekistan form one camp and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan another, it could worsen relations between these countries not only on water and energy, but also on other issues,” said Farhod Talibov, a political analyst in Uzbekistan.

Komron Aliev, an economist also from Uzbekistan, agreed, warning that “if each [state] becomes wrapped up in its own interests, the water and energy issue will remain unresolved for decades”.

Aydos Sarimov, a political scientist in Kazakstan, warned of wider ramifications down the line, such as “a complete lack of trust and constructive dialogue among Central Asian leaders”.

Change will only come when “more sensible politicians come to power, ones who seek cooperation rather than pointless competition”, he added.

In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, however, some analysts support their respective governments’ assertion that the dam schemes are their own business and no one else’s.

“We do not need approval to start building the Kambarata plant or any other reservoir on our rivers,” said Bazarbay Mambetov, an expert on water and energy issues in Kyrgyzstan. “It is only out of deference to our neighbours that we have informed them of our plans.”

Mambetov suggested that President Karimov was being “misinformed” about the likely impact of the dam schemes.

He went on to highlight the uneven distribution of energy sources in the region.

“Kyrgyzstan has no oil, gas or coal so we have to buy them from Uzbekistan and Kazakstan,” he said. “Both Uzbekistan and Kazakstan need to accept that they don’t have water resources, and to acknowledge the right of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – which do – to use them at their own discretion.”

Many politicians and commentators in Kyrgyzstan think it unfair that the Uzbeks and Kazaks regard water as a natural gift rather than a commodity, like mineral fuels, on which a monetary value can be placed. They get annoyed that the Uzbeks can charge them near-world market prices for gas and still complain when they store water in reservoirs to avoid running short of electricity in winter.

During the Soviet period, Tajik and Kyrgyz power stations served a unitary economic system and were designed to supply the entire Central Asian electricity grid and also regulate water flows to the downstream republics. In turn, the Tajiks and Kyrgyz received oil, gas and coal from other republics. After 1991, however, the Kazaks and Uzbeks began selling their fuel at commercial rates.

Mambetov suspects Tashkent does not want to lose the power it currently enjoys as Kyrgyzstan’s natural gas supplier.

“Uzbekistan is afraid that after the two [Kambarata] plants are completed… Kyrgyzstan will no longer need gas and coal, since it will have enough electricity for most of its energy needs,” he said.

By contrast, Georgy Petrov, a senior scientist at Tajikistan’s Institute for Water, Hydropower and Ecology, accepts that the Uzbeks and Kazaks have real concerns.

“It’s quite simple,” he said. Uzbekistan is concerned that major hydropower systems will be run in a manner that is harmful to the downstream countries…. One of the tasks of this summit is to create management arrangements that stop such things happening.”

In Uzbekistan, economist Komron Aliev said the Kyrgyz and Tajik would do well to be a little more receptive to the opinions and concerns of their neighbours. It would, for example, be possible to invite these states to be part of hydroelectric projects rather than leaving them as hostile outsiders.

There are even signs that the Uzbeks have been putting out feelers to Tajikistan – restoring electricity supplies that had been cut in January, and attending a bilateral meeting on economic matters held in Dushanbe.

“Islam Karimov is now saying he isn’t against the construction of hydroelectric power stations and is even prepared to participate in them,” said Petrov. “Rahmon, too, has made it clear in his speeches that we [Tajiks] have never stated that we would leave the downstream state without water.”

Interviewed by IWPR last month, Tajik political analyst Rashidghani Abdullo suggested that President Karimov was displaying a new pragmatism. With several hydropower schemes well on their way to completion, he said, the Uzbeks may have concluded that the policy of “vehement opposition… hasn’t been a success”.

Analysts say the success of any deal on water will depend on the extent to which the various governments are prepared to see and respect others’ points of views; on whether they will countenance a radical re-think of current water management arragements; and on their readiness to observe the terms of inter-state agreements rather than merely signing them, as has so often been the case in the past.

Jumakadyr Akeneev, a former Kyrgyz agriculture minister, says regional blocs like the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation can facilitate talks, but little more.

“Regional organisations… will not be able to help resolve this problem. This is one for the five Central Asian states,” he said.

Alikhon Latifi, an environmentalist in Dushanbe, warned that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan could only be expected to shift position if the Kazaks, Uzbeks and Turkmen, too, were prepared to give things up.

“There will be no concessions if they are to be unilateral,” he said,

Both Latifi and Petrov highlighted the fact that the divide between the water “haves” and “have nots” is over-simplistic, since all of them use irrigation, sometimes wastefully.

As Petrov noted, “Kazakstan is at the end of the line for the [Syr Darya] water that Kyrgyzstan provides. It isn’t just that Kyrgyzstan does not provide [enough] water. All the countries suffer, but Kazakstan suffers more than most because Uzbekistan takes all it can and Kazakstan only gets what is left.”

Latifi added, “Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakstan are still using the old method of irrigation which is not appropriate for today’s realities. All of us should have introduced water-saving technologies for irrigation – and that includes Tajikistan.”

Galiaskar Utegulov is the pseudonym of a freelance journalist in Kazakhstan, Aslibegim Manzarshoeva is an IWPR-trained contributor in Tajikistan, and Aida Kasymalieva is IWPR’s editor for Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan.