Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, October 18/ Trend, H. Hasanov /
Speaking at the OSCE conference on energy security taking place in Ashgabat on October 17-18, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said that "special attention should be paid towards the protection of natural resources of the Caspian Sea."
The Caspian Sea washes the coastline of Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkmenistan.
"Our common goal is to combine objective economic interests and realities of the international partnership in the energy sphere with the necessity to protect the biodiversity of the Caspian Sea, to prevent the disturbance of the fragile ecological balance," the president stressed.
According to him, the unique biological complex of the water reservoir itself and its coastal zones is the wealth of the whole of humanity and therefore requires the special attention of the international community.
The Turkmen head said that "the Caspian Sea region increasingly turns into one of the largest world centres of production and transportation of hydrocarbons."
The main topic of the OSCE international conference organised in Ashgabat with the participation of Foreign Ministries of Turkmenistan and Ukraine is 'Energy security and sustainable development - future of the OSCE'.
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland water reservoir not linked with any world ocean. It is unique for preserving various relict flora and fauna, including the world's largest shoal of sturgeon.
Experts maintain that there are a number of prerequisites for possible pollution of the Caspian Sea. Among those are the development of hydrocarbon reserves in the sea and the surrounding areas, the high density of population and industry in the adjacent areas, intensive agricultural development in the valleys which have rivers flowing into them, the lack of a river to sea explicit geochemical barrier and a closed basin.
For Turkmenistan, in the depths of which are concentrated the fourth largest natural gas reserves of the world after Russia, Iran and Qatar,, the gas transportation route to Europe through the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan is one of the attractive ones. In order to implement this project, the Turkmen side expressed its readiness to hold the relevant ecological expertise with the participation of international experts.