At the 69th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Tajikistan urgently called on the global community to address one of Central Asia’s most dangerous — and long-neglected — environmental and security threats: the rehabilitation of uranium tailings left over from Soviet-era mining. As Asiaplus.tj reports, what was once a regional footnote is now a frontline issue for national and cross-border security.
Tajikistan: From Assessment to Action Plan
Aziz Nazar, Deputy Minister of Industry and New Technologies of Tajikistan, used his official address to not only review progress at remediated sites like Min-Kush and Shekaftar, but to outline the massive scope of work still ahead. He emphasized that the IAEA Strategic Master Plan must serve as the guiding framework — offering a systematic, science-based, phased approach to eliminating radiological risks.
Nazar noted that cooperation with the IAEA has entered a new phase: joint initiatives now extend beyond tailings rehabilitation to include nuclear applications in healthcare, glacier monitoring, and water resource management — critical areas for mountainous Central Asia, where climate change is accelerating environmental stress.
A key milestone was Nazar’s meeting with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. The two agreed on new collaborative projects for 2026–2027 under the Technical Cooperation Programme. Significantly, Grossi accepted an invitation to attend the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Dushanbe on October 24–25, 2025 — underscoring the IAEA’s expanding interest in the region’s technological transformation.
In a parallel meeting with Fatou Haidara, Deputy Director General of UNIDO, discussions focused on deploying AI and digital solutions in mineral processing and light industry — sectors seen as vital alternatives to raw material dependency.
Kyrgyzstan: The Ticking Time Bomb
This is not Tajikistan’s problem alone — it’s a regional emergency. Nowhere is the threat more acute than in Kyrgyzstan, home to over 50 uranium tailings and waste dumps from Soviet mining operations. The most hazardous cluster lies in Mailuu-Suu (Jalal-Abad Region), where 23 tailings sit in a seismically active zone, perilously close to villages and rivers feeding into the Syr Darya — a lifeline for millions downstream.
Despite efforts by the Kyrgyz government and international donors — including the EBRD’s “Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia” — the situation remains critical. Many sites are structurally unstable. Full-scale remediation requires hundreds of millions of dollars and decades of sustained effort. Experts warn that a single major earthquake or flood could trigger a transboundary ecological disaster, contaminating water supplies in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.
A Glimmer of Hope: Russia-Tajikistan Partnership
In July 2025, momentum grew when Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, via its subsidiary CJSC “CPTI”, signed a contract to prepare engineering documentation for rehabilitating the tailings in Adrasman village and Waste Dump No. 3 at the former Taboshar site in Tajikistan’s Sughd Region. This marks the first major step under a bilateral intergovernmental agreement aimed squarely at reducing radiological hazards and preventing environmental contamination.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
Sept. 19, 2025