Agence France Presse
October 6

Four Central Asian leaders on Sunday urged international action to reverse the disappearance of the ecologically-stricken Aral Sea and announced plans to hold a donors' conference in Tokyo next year.

Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov, who held talks on the issue with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, said the Aral crisis was a global problem.

"One million tonnes of salt gets into the air as a result of the evaporation of the Aral Sea. This is upsetting the whole ecological balance not only in the region but in the world as well," he said. Kazakh President Nursultan said the salt of the Aral Sea caused ice to melt not only in the nearby Pamir chain but also in the European Alps.

The four leaders said that they would push for the creation of a UN commission on the Aral Sea. The Tajik president also announced plans to hold an international conference in Tokyo in early 2003 to raise funds.

"We need help from the international community. The World Bank has responded to our requests," he said.

The environmental disaster occurred after Soviet planners in the 1960s diverted water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which fed the Aral Sea, to irrigate new cotton fields that had been planned for Central Asia by former Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev.

The drawing of water from the two rivers kept increasing in a bid to boost production of the thirsty cotton crop -- planted in some of the most arid lands of the former Soviet Union -- resulting in a drastic cut in the flow of water into the Aral.

In the end, the two rivers stopped reaching the sea altogether, leaving what was once the world's fourth largest inland water reserve to slowly evaporate in the sun.

Today the Aral Sea is one-third of its original size. The fish have died and a layer of salt and toxic dust, left behind from pesticides as water evaporated, is blown across the land, leaving a toxic covering thick as snow.

As the sea receded, its windswept residue suffocated local agriculture, making people ill and polluting drinking water.

Besides tuberculosis, experts noted increases in respiratory and kidney diseases, which they link to the saline drinking water and salt dust, and a high child mortality rate.

The sea is situated on the territory of Uzbekistan and Kazkhakstan but its river tributaries extend across Central Asia.

To date Uzbekistan has won 3 bronze medals all in all.

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