DUSHANBE, August 24, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Tajikistan should use every opportunity to prove its right to build large dams in its territory, local expert Shokirjon Hakimov said in an interview with Asia-Plus, commenting on nonparticipation of Tajikistan at a meeting for dam safety cooperation in Central Asia.

As it had been reported earlier, organized by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the meeting of the expert group for working out regional dam safety cooperation agreement is scheduled to take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan on August 27.  The meeting that is held  within the framework of the “Dam Safety in Central Asia: Capacity Building and Regional Cooperation,” aims to consider ways to strengthen safety of more than 300 large dams and other regulating hydropower facilities located on the trans-border river in the region.

“Senior representatives of government bodies should realize that people’s trust in them is decreasing from to year following energy crisis that hit the country in autumn-winter period,” said Hakimov, “Senior state officials should prove both to the people of the country and partners in the region as well as appropriate international organizations that construction of hydropower facilities is the main way for development of Tajikistan’s economy.”

The expert supposes that Tajikistan probably wants to solve this problem not within the framework of regional meetings and symposiums but through bilateral meetings.  “However, there ought not to forget that it is necessary to use all existing opportunities and realities to reach an agreement on this subject,” he added.

According to him, another reason for nonparticipation of Tajikistan in the Almaty meeting for dam safety cooperation might be unreadiness of separate Tajik officials to prove reasonableness of an official position of Tajikistan regarding the construction of dams in the territory of Tajikistan, “in short, their incompetence.”