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Drugs, terrorism, water threaten C Asia: Nazarbayev

ALMATY: Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has warned that drugs, terrorism and scarce water resources are the main threats to stability in Central Asia, state media reported on Friday.

Economic integration between regional states would play a positive role in ensuring stability, the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper quoted Nazarbayev as telling the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on Thursday.

"Our region has become part of huge, global-scale drug trafficking," Nazarbayev said. He urged the OSCE to support economic and political integration to limit tensions.

The newspaper quoted United Nations figures showing that up to 65 percent of opium and heroin from Afghanistan, the world's largest source of both, passed through the vast, oil-rich region. Afghanistan borders three of five Central Asian states.

Nazarbayev said it was no coincidence that terrorism and drug trafficking via Central Asia to Europe were on the rise.

He shares the view of regional leaders and Russian Acting President Vladimir Putin that bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan are used to train whom they call "international terrorists" who often have links with extremist Islamic groups.

Some political analysts say such explanations oversimplify the problem and are used to justify security crackdowns, including Russia's campaign in the breakaway Chechnya region.

Khabar state television quoted Nazarbayev as saying he had evidence that rebels who crossed into southern Kyrgyzstan from bases in Tajikistan last summer were preparing to launch a another raid as early as in the spring.

The lack of water across the arid steppes and deserts of Central Asia also was a possible source of friction, Nazarbayev said. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both largely mountainous, supply Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan with water.-Reuters