U.N. urges Central Asia talks on shrinking Aral Sea
By Patrick Worsnip and Conor Sweeney; editing by Philippa Fletcher
MOYNAK, Uzbekistan
Sun Apr 4, 2010 9:51am EDT MOYNAK, Uzbekistan (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Central Asian states to work together to tackle the disastrous effects of the shrinking Aral Sea Sunday after local people urged the United Nations to resolve a regional dispute. Much of the former bed of what was once the world’s fourth largest lake is now a desert covered with scrub and salt flats. It shrank by 70 percent after Soviet planners in the 1960s siphoned off water for cotton irrigation projects in Uzbekistan. “I was so shocked,” Ban said after viewing the damage by helicopter, describing it as “clearly one of the worst environmental disasters in the world.” He was on a tour of the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia that lie on some of the world’s biggest untapped oil, gas, uranium and gold reserves. The people living around the Aral Sea are some of the poorest in the region and struggle with declining fresh water supplies and fish stocks, pollution and violent sand storms. In 1990 the sea split into a large southern Uzbek part and a smaller Kazakh portion. “I urge all the leaders (of Central Asia), including President (Islam ) Karimov of Uzbekistan to sit down together and try to find solutions,” said Ban, hours before a scheduled meeting with the Uzbek leader. “All specialized agencies of the United Nations will provide necessary assistance and expertise,” he said. …
