Astana and Moscow Agree to Joint Monitoring of Irtysh and Ural Rivers

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 5 – Despite any progress towards an agreement on the diversion of Siberian river water to Central Asia and Russian anger about Kazakhstan’s demand for a voice on the way in which Moscow handles the flow of the Volga into the Caspian, the two countries have agreed to joint monitoring of the Irtysh and Ural, two transborder rivers.

            In fact, the two countries have been negotiating on this possibility for some time, even as conflicts over the much larger issues have continued. (On earlier talks, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/07/moscow-and-astana-inch-toward.html; and on public clashes on such issues, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/russians-outraged-kazakhstan-wants.html.)

            The Kazakhstan Altyn-Orda portal says that at a recent meeting in Yekaterinburg, the two sides did agree to continue to monitor flows of the transborder rivers, study the impact of those on water resources, and work to prevent flooding (altyn-orda.kz/kazahstan-i-rossiya-dogovorilis-sovmestno-upravlyat-irtyshem-i-uralom/).

            Such meetings and the accords they often produce are a reminder that even when countries in the former Soviet space may very publicly disagree on headline issues, they often continue diplomatic contacts that may open the way for progress on bigger questions later.