Central Asian cooperation summit gathers in Tajikistan

At the Dushanbe summit meeting on Saturday Presidents Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akayev of Kirghizia are going to discuss expansion of cooperation in different sectors of the economy, customs barriers, bilateral and multilateral relations.

A RIA Novosti correspondent reports that Kazakh President Nazarbayev said upon arrival in Dushanbe that summiteers will also focus on "poignant questions of relations within the Commonwealth of Independent States". From Dushanbe we will fly to Chisinau to participate in the CIS summit, said Nazarbayev.

As regards the problem of the Aral Sea, the Kazakh president noted that "there are very many local save-the-Aral projects." Kazakhstan now works on a 700 million-dollar programme of water supply for people who live by the Aral sea. In addition, 300 million dollars has been allocated to build water-amelioration facilities, said Nazarbayev.

On Sunday, October 6th, a new save-the-Aral project of the World Bank will be considered at a forum of the international Aral sea fund in Dushanbe, said Nazarbayev.