DUSHANBE, February 12, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are currently considering the possibility of unification of their power system.

Kazakh Ambassador to Tajikistan remarked this at a news conference in Dushanbe on February 11.  According to him, disruption of the Central Asian unified power grid is a temporal occurrence. 

We will recall that Uzbekistan left the regional power grid in December 2009, criticizing it as an outdated and unreliable union that caused problems and disagreements among its members.

“Withdrawal from the CA unified power grid affects not only the country that left the system, it also affects all countries of the region,” Kazakh diplomat said, noting that the energy ministries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are currently conducting negotiations on construction of a power transmission from the Kyrgyz city of Osh to Khujand in Tajikistan that will allow to unify power systems of the three countries in the future.

“We’ve got to have alternative,” said Ambassador Akhmetov, “It is not connected with the fact that somebody withdrew from the regional grid or somebody joined it.  At present all have increased requirements for electrical power.”

He also noted that Kazakhstan would pay serious attention to the issues of water distribution in Central Asia during its OSCE chairmanship in 2010.  “For example, we plan to consider issues related to transit capacity, environmental aspects and water problems of Central Asia,” Akhmetov noted, stressing that Kazakhstan comes out for fair and rational use of water resources in the region.

“Central Asia’s countries have discussed this issue every year,” said Kazakh diplomat.  “Thus a session of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (ICWC) was held in Shimkent (Kazakhstan) last month to discuss water consumption quotas allotted for the countries of the region and the schedule of work of reservoirs located in the basin of the Syr Darya River.”

Kazakh ambassador noted that Tajikistan has always fulfilled its obligations on the water consumption quotas agreements.