OSCE PA discusses Aral Sea problem

14:54, 21 October 2022

ASTANA. KAZINFORM Vice Speaker of the Senate of the Kazakh Parliament Askar Shakirov participated in an online conference of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Committee for Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment for discussing the acute problems of ensuring economic and environmental security in the OSCE region, Kazinform learned from the Senate’s press service.

Askar Shakirov, who is the Deputy Chairman of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and OSCE PA Special Representative on SDGs drew the participants’ attention to the Aral Sea problem, which had become a real challenge both for the Aral Sea countries with the total population of more than 60mln people and for the entire world.

As is known, shrinking of the Aral Sea was recognized by the UN as the severest anthropogenic ecological disaster. Consolidation of the efforts of the entire global community is required to solve this problem.

The deputies of the Committee as well as interested parliamentarians of the OSCE were proposed to visit the Aral Sea region to get an insight into the situation and discuss the possible contribution of the OSCE.

In July, at the annual session of the OSCE PA in Birmingham, the parliamentary delegations of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan called the donor countries to join the implementation of the Aral Sea saving projects.

The Bureau of the Committee backed the initiative to send a delegation of the OSCE PA to the Aral Sea region in the first half of 2023.

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Aral Sea Kazakhstan Parliament (Qurultay) Senate Environment