Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend E.Huseynli / The Director of the Radiation Institute of Azerbaijan's National Academy of Sciences, IAEA representative for Azerbaijan, Adil Garibov, said on 1 October that the indicators of pollution of the Kur river with heavy metals have increased in Georgia and Armenia. The Kur river provides 60 percent of Baku with drinking water.
According to him, the indicators of heavy metals in the Araz and Kur rivers, which are considered trans-border rivers, overstep the norms.
"A clean up needs to be done in the trans-border water resources before using it as drinking water," Garibo;v said.
There are two trans-border rivers, Kur and Araz, in Azerbaijan. The rivers are polluted mainly in Armenia and Georgia. They have not undertaken responsibility to clean up the trans-border rivers because they have not joined international conventions.
According to Garibov, monitoring was carried out in 16 sections to study the components of the trans-border waters. In addition, he said that radiation pollution in the rivers was normal.