Nazarbayev Awards King Abdullah II of Jordan First Prize for Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security

October 10, 2016

ASTANA – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev awarded King Abdullah II of Jordan on Oct. 10 with the first Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security.

“Today, I would like to tell you and our people about the new initiative,” Nazarbayev said from the Akorda presidential residence where he was receiving credentials from newly appointed foreign ambassadors. “I have made a decision to establish the international award for contributions to nuclear disarmament and security.”

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev

“This is Kazakhstan’s international prize,” Nazarbayev added. “This year, King Abdullah II of Jordan has been chosen as the first laureate of this award. Later on, a special committee will be established (to choose laureates who will be awarded) on the day of closing the Semipalatinsk test site on Aug. 29.”

King Abdullah’s contributions include his policy of sheltering more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Jordan and his will to turn the Middle East into a zone of peace, including through the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region.

“I fully support the idea of awarding King Abdullah for his contribution to world peace and I am glad that such an award has been established,” said Honorary Ambassador of The ATOM Project Karipbek Kuyukov. “Kazakhstan should get full recognition for its efforts because there were only two nations who had seen the true horror of nuclear weapons – us and Japan. Hence, I believe awarding next time to Japan would make perfect sense.”

Kazakhstan, in turn, continues its struggle to achieve a world completely free of nuclear weapons. The country has become one of the global leaders in nuclear weapons nonproliferation after shutting down the Soviet Union’s test site near Semipalatinsk in 1991 and ongoing efforts to achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world.

King Abdullah II of Jordan

This year the country celebrated the 25th anniversary of the shutdown by inviting more than 200 international and 800 local participants to commemorate the UN International Day against Nuclear Tests on Aug. 29 at an international conference, titled Building a Nuclear Weapons Free World.

On that day, international speakers, including Vice President of Bulgaria Margarita Popova, President of the International Parliamentary Union Saber Chowdhury, Vice President of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly Azay Guliyev from Azerbaijan and Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Motome Takisawa urged the Kazakh President to consider establishing a prize to acknowledge and support others in the quest for a nuclear-weapons-free world.

The prize announcement follows President Nazarbayev’s manifesto “The World. The 21st Century,” which he presented earlier this year in Washington.