The Global Zero Summit in Paris (2-4 Feb.) brings together 200 international political, military, business, and religious leaders – along with popular figures like film actor Michael Douglas and Queen Noor of Jordan - for talks on the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons and for the launch of the next phase of a campaign to build public and political support for total non-proliferation.
The Summit - taking place at Le Grand InterContinental Hotel, Paris - sets out to be a catalytic event in the lead-up to President Obama’s April summit on nuclear security and the May Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (see more below).
Kazakhstan has been pushing an identical agenda for almost twenty years.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev has consistently called for a nuclear weapons-free world since coming to power in 1991.
Upon gaining independence, Kazakhstan was in possession of the world’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal: over 1,000 one-megaton warheads and upwards of 100 SS-18 ICBMs - which the country willingly gave up.
Over one million Kazakhs were exposed to the radiation resulting from 456 Soviet nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk from 1949 to 1989 (experts say that it will take nearly 300 years to fully clean up the site). It was here in 2006 that the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone treaty was signed. The Treaty is a legally binding commitment by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan not to manufacture, acquire, test, or possess nuclear weapons.
Last year, President Nazarbayev suggested August 29th – the anniversary of the shut-down of Semipalatinsk – as an international day of nuclear weapons renunciation.
Kazakhstan continues to show the way towards a nuclear weapons-free world by offering to host the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Fuel Bank – a depository of nuclear fuel for civilian projects throughout the world. Such a bank would obviate the need for national enrichment programmes.
Global Zero is working on several fronts to achieve total non-proliferation - by developing a step-by-step plan for the elimination of nuclear weapons and conducting track-two diplomacy to build support among key governments (such as the US and Russia). In addition, Global Zero generates worldwide public support through media and online communications and grassroots organizing.
Presidents Obama and Medvedev have already expressed support for deep reductions in nuclear weapons. The likely vehicle is the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expired at the end of last year. The treaty limited the United States and Russia to 6,000 nuclear warheads each. The U.S. stockpile today is believed to be about 2,300 warheads, and the Russians' even lower. President Obama and President Medvedev both sent messages of support to this week’s Paris summit.
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