Text of report by the Kyrgyz news agency Kabar on 30th August

Bishkek, 30th August: Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev and Prince Aga Khan IV [the leader of the world Ismailis]
have signed an agreement to set up a Central Asian university to develop education in and study mountainous regions.

The agreement is of historic significance not only for the countries of Central Asia as this university, the first of the
kind, is aimed at raising living standards of all the people whose lives and prosperity depend on the social and economic
development of the world's highest mountainous territories, Akayev said.

The Central Asian university's center will be located in Khorog [centre of eastern Tajik Badakhshon Mountainous
Autonomous Region] and it will have branches in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

At the signing ceremony, the president stressed that the idea to set up the university belonged to Prince Aga Khan.

In his turn, His Highness thanked the Kyrgyz president for supporting the idea to set up the university and expressed
his particular gratitude for supporting the idea of a regional, not national, university, as the problem of low living standards in
mountainous areas affects not only Kyrgyzstan.

After the ceremony, members of the organizational committee of the foundation for the setting up of the Central
Asian university gave a news conference, which was also attended by diplomats accredited in the country.

The university will study such mountainous areas as the Altay, Tyan Shan, Pamir, Hindu Kush, Karakum of
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan.