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Kazakhstan Highlights Anti-Nuclear Initiatives at Berlin Conference

November 24, 2015

Nuclear Weapons TestingBERLIN – The Kazakh Embassy in Germany and the Westerwelle Foundation held an anti-nuclear conference at the venue of Westerwelle Foundation Public Fund in Berlin Nov. 23.

A welcome speech was given by Kazakh Ambassador to Germany Bolat Nusupov. The event was moderated by Central Asia expert and Deutsche Welle journalist Günter Knabe.

Ex-UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs of Germany Angela Kane and the Head of the Federal Foreign Office’s Directorate-General for Disarmament Affairs and Arms Control and the Ambassador Patricia Flor took part in the conference.

“As I stand here before you I am full of sympathy for the recent victims of terrorism and their families from Russia, Lebanon, Paris and most recently Mali. As I see the expansion of the likes of Islamic and Alquada fundamentalists spreading their carnage around the world I am also increasingly concerned about a serious threat of nuclear weapons material falling into the hands of terrorists,” said Honorary Ambassador of the ATOM project Karipbek Kuyukov

“Nuclear weapons are an evil and misguided way of purportedly providing security. Their very existence poses a serious threat from either an accident waiting to happen or a terrorist event with their use. Our world now has a new urgency posed by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that will stop at nothing to kill as many people as they can. The mere fact that we have so many nuclear weapons, which are sometimes less well secured in parts of this world makes this call more urgent – Tell our world leaders to begin serious negotiations on finally eradicating all nuclear weapons worldwide, responsibly and urgently, starting with the immediate signing of the CTBTO (Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty),” he added.

Kuyukov called on participants to sign The ATOM Project petition, which has now more than 210,000 signatures from over 100 countries, to finally put an end to nuclear madness, saying, “the cold war has ended but a new era spurned by Islamic terrorism makes this call ever more urgent.”

Kuyukov was born without arms in a small village, just miles from where the Soviet Union conducted more than 450 nuclear weapons tests. He has devoted his life and art to eradicating nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons testing.

“Kazakhstan, more than many other countries, knows the horrible consequences of nuclear weapons. … Our President at the UN General Assembly in September proposed that mankind identifies nuclear disarmament as the ultimate goal for the 21st century and building a nuclear-weapon-free world as the ultimate law of humanity … and offered a vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world by 2045, which is the year of sententary of the United Nations,” said the Chairman of the of International Information Committee of the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs Roman Vassilenko.

“I am the victim of the nuclear testing at Semipalatinsk. I was born without arms, but I manage to express my creativity through painting with my mouth and feet. I have devoted my life and art to making sure that no one – and nowhere – else suffers the devastating effects of nuclear weapons. I have traveled throughout the world on behalf of The ATOM Project and I have spoken out against nuclear weapons, calling on everyone to sign a petition to world leaders to ban them for good,” said Kuyukov.