By empty (9/4/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is studying the possibility to deliver water of Siberian rivers to the Central Asian region. \"I have been raising the issue recently,\" Nazarbayev said at a joint press conference with Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Astana on Monday. Diverting Siberian rivers will not have a negative impact on the environment, he said.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is studying the possibility to deliver water of Siberian rivers to the Central Asian region. \"I have been raising the issue recently,\" Nazarbayev said at a joint press conference with Uzbek President Islam Karimov in Astana on Monday. Diverting Siberian rivers will not have a negative impact on the environment, he said. \"Populist statements [of the Soviet era] that this is dangerous were wrong,\" the Kazakh president said, adding that it was calculated in the USSR that \"the bogs of the Ob river will not be drained\" as a result of diverting Siberian rivers to Central Asia, he said. \"This will only affect 8% of Siberian rivers,\" Nazarbayev said. (Interfax)