TASHKENT, Dec 7: Asian countries, including central Asian republics, China and Russia, on Tuesday agreed to pool their vast energy resources and enhance regional cooperation by uniting financial resources and technical expertise to counter a looming energy crisis in the world.

They also jointly asked the United States not to follow destructive policies in different regions of the world for its own energy security and stressed that Asian countries comprised energy producers as well as consumers and should cooperate with each other for economic benefits.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day international conference on “Central Asia Energy Market: Trends and Prospects”, Gulnara Karimova, elder daughter of President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, proposed setting up of a Unified Energy Area, through an internally connected trans-national oil and gas pipeline system and electric power grids.

She said regional countries including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Pakistan, China, Iran and India could enhance cooperation in the energy sector and develop energy export routes by resolving their political issues.

“We all should bring together our financial resources and technical expertise for providing benefits to each other,” she added.

She said the central Asian region contained about 164 trillion cubic meters of oil reserves, which were enough for about 62 years for the whole region.

She criticized US military action in Iraq and described it as “destructive policy” to secure its energy requirement.

About 100 delegates from 11 regional countries are attending the moot organized by the Center for Political Studies (CPS) of Uzbekistan.

Political stability guarantees availability of oil and gas routes while the world is in search to tap these resources in order to overcome looming energy crisis, she said, adding there was need to ensure cooperation in areas of renewable energy, transit gas pipelines and hydropower generation and transportation across borders.

She said there was need to initiate energy diplomacy as the Central Asian Republics (CARs) possessed 3.5 per cent deposits of total energy resources in the world. There are 7.76 trillion cubic feet available “in this part of the world, which is 3.3 per cent of total world resources”.

There are estimates that during the next 20 years 35 per cent more gas will be available while oil production will increase by 35m barrel.

She said Uzbekistan has been exporting 99 cubic feet of gas since 2002 and “it is our plan to increase 2 million cubic feet per year”.

She said regional countries should resist outside influence to ensure sustainable energy prices and security of supplies through common sets of taxes and duties and enhance a sustainable dialogue in this regard.

Mr Ternyuk, a top official of Russian energy giant Gazprom, said regional cooperation “can be enhanced” among different states and companies “as there are 5 per cent proven deposits in the field of oil and gas”.

Analyzing the market, he said all regional countries, including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkey, possessed rich resources and “they can become hub” for providing oil and gas to their neighbouring countries.

Mr Fenglin, head of China’s Social Development Institute, criticized the interference of foreign powers in the policies pursued by Central Asian countries and called upon these nations to develop their political and economic systems independently.

He said the situation in Central Asia depicted the geo-political fracture and tendencies of world political situation and added that complete independence in decision-making should be the ultimate goal of the people of central Asia by resolving their internal ethnic and border issues.

Without naming any country he called upon western powers to respect the right of the central Asian people to have their own way of democracy. There should be no role for colonization, he added.

He said China was committed to sustainable political and economic relations with regional countries.