Tajik-Kyrgyz Water Consortium Will Upset Neighbours

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have decided to set up a water and energy consortium on their own, but NBCentralAsia observers say this will not help resolve regional water and energy disputes unless the other Central Asian states are brought on board.



During a visit by the Kyrgyz foreign minister Ednan Karabaev to Dushanbe last week, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to set up a joint Water and Energy Consortium, saying it would also be open to the other Central Asian countries.



The idea of a water consortium involving all the countries in the region has been on the table for around ten years. From time to time, a head of state will float the idea again, through Central Asian regional groupings or also within the Eurasian Economic Community of which Russia is a member.



The issue was last brought up during an informal summit involving four Central Asian heads of state in Astana last September, but it never got past the discussion stage.



Despite Karabaev’s insistence that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan see eye to eye on energy issues, experts in both countries doubt the two states can revive the idea and turn it into reality.



Alikhon Latifi, director of the Tajikistan-based Central Asian Regional Ecological Centre, fears the other countries will reject the Kyrgyz-Tajik initiative and that as a result, the consortium will turn into just one more meaningless institution.



Nor, he added, is it clear how the consortium will be funded. And the persistent tensions among Central Asian states over the distribution of water for irrigation and electricity generation will not simply vanish because an inter-state water commission has emerged.



Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have high mountain ranges that place them upstream of the region’s water supply allowing them to generate the hydroelectricity they need in winter. Kazakstan and Uzbekistan lie downstream, and their main interest is in getting enough water in summer to irrigate their crops.



Georgy Petrov, who heads a laboratory at Tajikistan’s Institute for Water, says that although Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are in a similar position, they may still fall out as water consortium members. Kyrgyzstan, for example, may have to shoulder some of the costs the Tajiks incur if they have to compensate Uzbekistan when not enough water is available downstream.



If they go it alone, these two countries will find it difficult to regulate all aspects of the cross-border water flow. Petrov points out that water from the large Toktogul water reservoir in Kyrgyzstan goes first to Uzbekistan before flowing on to the Kairakkum reservoir in Tajikistan.



Kyrgyz energy expert Bazarbay Mambetov says his country would benefit from the consortium because having greater power over regional water politics would give the green light to a series of hydroelectric power stations at Kambarata, on the upper reaches of the Syr Darya.



At the same time, it is precisely because these hydroelectric schemes could upset the regional water balance that Kazakstan and Uzbekistan will have taken news of the consortium badly, he added.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)