Environmental issues in Kazakhstan sea’s already grave pollution. International programs to save the Aral and Caspian seas have not received meaningful cooperation from Kazakhstan or other member nations. The Aral Sea covers with Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south. Soviet irrigation projects begun in the 1960s and other environmental challenges have severely depleted this once massive inland sea and by 2007, it had shrunk to 10 percent of its original size. The efforts included Syr Darya Control & Northern Aral Sea (NAS) project. The $86 million NAS project, funded jointly by the World Bank through a loan of $65 million and
Kazakhstan–Uzbekistan border awarding the city to Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan however gained the large city of Shymkent. A further complication were the Karakalpaks; the Soviets were unsure if they were Uzbeks, Kazakhs or a separate nationality altogether. Given the at-best weak sense of Karakalpak nationality, and their perceived closer links to the Kazakhs, they were given their own Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast within the Kazakh ASSR. This oblast was larger than the modern autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan and extended considerably further eastwards, thereby cutting the Uzbek SSR in two, with a small exclave around Khiva. Poor economic performance in the oblast convinced Soviet leaders that