DUSHANBE, March 7, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- An official delegation of Tajikistan is attending a two-day Ministerial Conference “Water Diplomacy in Central Asia” that is opening in Berlin today.

According to the Tajik MFA information department, Mr. Mahmoudjon Sobirov, First Deputy Foreign Minister, and Mr. Sulton Rahimov, First Deputy Minister of Land Reclamation and Water Resources, are representing Tajikistan at the conference. 

Organized by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the conference is expected to bring together senior representatives of ministries of foreign affairs and water resources from Central Asia’s countries.

The conference is held to launch the second phase of a water initiative for Central Asia (the ‘Berlin Process’).

The conference participants are expected to adopt a joint statement of intent for cooperation in the framework of the water initiative for Central Asia.

We will recall that the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Germany announced the launch of a water initiative for Central Asia (the ‘Berlin Process’) at the Berlin water conference “Water Unites - New Perspectives for Cooperation and Security” on April 1, 2008.  The initiative is an offer by the German Federal Government to the countries of Central Asia to support them in water management and to make water a subject of intensified trans-boundary cooperation.  The primary goal is to thereby set in train a process of political rapprochement in Central Asia that leads to closer cooperation in the use of the scarce water resources and may result in joint water and energy management in the long term.

The water initiative for Central Asia has four pillars: 1) Promoting trans-boundary water management; 2) expanding scientific knowledge for trans-boundary water management; 3) networking water experts in Germany, the EU and Central Asia; and 4) establishing a course in water management at the German-Kazakh University in Almaty, Kazakhstan.