33to revive the co-ordination capacity lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the prime ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan came together in
March 1998 to ink yet another agreement on how to share the resources of the
Syr-Darya River, which runs 2,200 kilometres before trickling limply into the now-
doomed Aral Sea. In 1999 Tajikistan joined the arrangement, which was intended
to balance between the ostensibly inimical requirements of hydropower produc-
ers Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and the irrigation needs in the fertile lowlands of
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Without a strong foundation in goodwill, the abstractly conceived arrangement
was ill-equipped to withstand crises and the fractious demands of the various
governments involved. As early as May 1999, Kyrgyzstan resorted to using its riv-
ers as a political weapon, cutting off water flows to Kazakhstan so as to force its
neighbour to provide recompense for the expense of maintaining reservoirs along
the Syr-Darya. The gambit worked – Kazakhstan agreed to deliver hundreds of
thousands of tons of coal to Kyrgyzstan.
Central Asia and water, Peter Leonard Opinion & Analysis
The Nurek hydroelectric station on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan. Co-operation
between Central Asia’s mountainous upstream nations, like Tajikistan, and their
expansive downstream neighbours remains a key challenge for the region.Photo: Shukhrat Sadiyev (CC) commons.wikimedia.org