Kazakhstan: An exemplary non-nuclear-weapon state

April 15, 2016

On April 5, 2009 in the Czech capital of Prague US President Barack Obama declared to the world “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”. This unprecedented speech by an American head of state sparked a wave of enthusiasm among peoples and governments that had long urged the world’s internationally condoned nuclear-weapon powers (the US, Russia, France, Great Britain, and China) and the international community at large to step up their efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear materials and weapons across the globe as well as to pursue concrete steps towards worldwide nuclear disarmament.

While it is primarily the nuclear-weapon states that hold the key to nuclear disarmament, non-nuclear-weapon states have made a wide variety of concrete commitments to secure the technology, know-how, and fissile materials required to create a nuclear weapon. Moreover, many of these states have been extremely vocal and active in their quest to make nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament a priority, therewith putting pressure on the nuclear-weapon states to follow suit. Here, Kazakhstan, as result of its painful experience with nuclear weapons testing and its strong non-proliferation record, stands out as a clear example of a country that has diligently worked to make the idea of a world without nuclear weapons a reality.

The Soviet Union’s nuclear legacy in Kazakhstan
More than 450 nuclear weapons were tested by the Soviet Union between 1949 and 1989 at the Semipalatinsk test site (commonly known as “the Polygon”) in today’s Kazakhstan. These tests exposed an estimated one and a half million locals to dangerous doses of radiation, the effects of which are still visible today in the region’s abnormally high rates of cancer, birth defects, and infertility

To read the full story in The Journal of Turkish Weekly, click here.