Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The environmental state of the region due to the shoaling of the Aral Sea has a definite impact on nature and the environment as well as living conditions, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has said.

"That's why it is necessary to join all the efforts of the states in the Aral Sea region and the world community," Berdymukhamedov said in his message to delegates at a conference, 'Ecology of the Aral Sea: sustainable development and international cooperation'.

The two-day conference, which started in Dashoguz, Turkmenistan on Wednesday, is attended by representatives of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS), as well as delegations from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union and other international and regional organizations.

The Turkmen president said sustainable development of humanity and its environmental security are inseparably associated with interregional and international cooperation.

"I am confident that today's international conference will be of great importance for the exchange of experience and making joint decisions by representatives of international organizations for the protection of the environment, scientists and specialists," he said.

The main goal of the conference is to draw international attention to the state of the ecosystem of the Aral Sea. The agenda includes issues of regional environmental policy in several key areas. It is focusing on the ecology of the Aral Sea, the prevention of desertification, protection of biodiversity and environment in the region through forestation and sustainable management of water resources in the Aral Sea region.

In general, given the wide range of environmental problems in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, particularly in the context of climate change, the event is believed to strengthen multilateral cooperation.

Created in the 1990s by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, IFAS is aimed at financing joint projects and programs to save the Aral Sea and improving the environmental situation in the Aral Sea.

Earlier Turkmen Ministry of Nature Protection said that Turkmenistan is closely cooperating with the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea.

On December 11, 2008 IFSA was granted observer status at the UN General Assembly.

From the UN General Assembly rostrum, Ashgabat previously called for the creation of a special international expert group which in collaboration with the UN and its agencies could develop a comprehensive an international legal document to save the Aral Sea.

Ashgabat offers developing a special UN program to deal with the Aral Sea and to establish a partnership with the UN Interregional Center on Climate Change. The Turkmen side expressed its willingness to provide the necessary infrastructure for this work.

Speaking at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20, held in Brazil in June 2012, President Berdymukhamedov stressed that the tasks of sustainable development in Central Asia would not be fulfilled without solving the problem of the Aral Sea.

Saving the Aral Sea is one of the serious problems and without its solution it is difficult to talk about the implementation of sustainable development in Central Asia, Berdymukhamedov said.

According to him, the Aral Sea today is a disaster zone, whose effects directly affect the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of people, and have a negative impact on the economic, social and environmental situation in the region.

The Aral Sea issue has affected the north of Turkmenistan. The Dashoguz region has suffered negative effects of the environmental disaster; acute problems emerged that are associated with providing the population with clean drinking water and salinity management of cultivated land.

In order to stabilize the environmental situation in Turkmenistan, work has been carried out to reconstruct interstate collectors Ozerny and Daryalyk in Dashoguz, as well as construct the main Shasenem collector.

Turkmenistan's major contribution in addressing the environmental problems of the Aral Sea is the ongoing construction of the Altyn Asyr lake on its territory.