Minister: Pollution of Azerbaijan's Okhchuchay River remains unresolved

Azerbaijan’s Ecology Minister Mukhtar Babayev has said that Azerbaijan had appealed to the international community to stop the pollution of Okhchuchay River, but, unfortunately, the problem still remains unresolved.

The minister made the statement while speaking at an international water conference on the theme “Promotion of partnerships and activities for sustainable water resources management”, according to Report.

Babayev noted that the world depends on water and it must be used correctly.

“Today, there is a shortage of water on almost all continents. Azerbaijan also suffers from this problem,” the minister said.

The contamination of the Okhchu river, one of the eleven rivers of Azerbaijan in the Karabakh region, which is home to more than 30 per cent of the country’s overall drinking water reserves, has also been a great concern for the Azerbaijani authorities over the years. 

Baku blamed the Armenian authorities for not preventing the pollution of the river, the water of which is not used in Armenia and flows into Azerbaijan’s agriculturally important Araz River. The Okhchu river is said to be used as a “collector” by Armenia’s producers for sending away the industrial wastes from the country’s territory and causing agricultural, environmental, and humanitarian disasters in Azerbaijan. The analysis of the samples taken from the Okhchu river revealed many life-threatening elements in the water, including copper, molybdenum, manganese, iron, zinc, and chromium. According to the examination results, the amount of nickel in the river was seven times, iron four times, and copper-molybdenum two times higher than normal.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has developed its own water policy and prepared an action plan for the use of water, according to Babayev.

“We pay special attention to transboundary cooperation, we have joined the water convention,” Babayev said.

The minister also highlighted the necessity of following the UN Sustainable Development Goals on the use of water resources.

“We call on everyone to ratify the water convention,” he said.