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Astana Recognizes More Than Two Decades Of Nuclear Disarmament, Non-Proliferation

By Aygul Ospanova September 25, 2017

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President Nursultan Nazarbayev renounced nuclear warheads by closing down the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site on August 29, 1991. / Ak Orda

While Kazakhstan ranks near the top of the world’s list of countries possessing the most nuclear material, such as uranium, nuclear security has always been a top priority for the government in Astana. Last week, Kazakhstan completed two major initiatives centered on nuclear disarmament, some of the largest ever undertaken.

Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev signed a protocol with Alexey Likhachev, the Director General of Russia’s nuclear regulatory body Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, in Vienna on September 19, during the 61st International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference, recognizing the completion of a disposal project that went into effect on January 20, 1995. As a result of the 22 years-long effort, about 500 tons of weapons grade uranium had been extracted from nuclear ammunition that was left over in Russia and Kazakhstan during the Soviet era, and repurposed for civilian nuclear usage.

At the same time, Kazakhstan liquidated the last reserves of highly enriched uranium (HEU) being used in pressurized water reactor in Kazakhstan’s former capital city of Almaty. With help from the US National Nuclear Security Administration, Kazakhstani scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics were able to destroy more than 200 kilograms (441 lbs) of HEU, enough to create eight nuclear warheads.

To convert the pressurized water reactor into a reactor that uses low enriched uranium (LEU) as its fuel source, scientists from the US and Kazakhstan worked to develop a new fuel assembly for LEU with a higher density, in turn making the reactor more efficient.

“Within the framework of the recent liquidation activities, the Institute of Nuclear Physics has become free of highly enriched uranium, thus eliminating the possibility of terrorists obtaining materials for the creation of nuclear weapons,” said David Husenga, Acting Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Nuclear Non-Proliferation, according to KazInform news agency.

“The achievement of non-proliferation is particularly important, as it emphasizes Kazakhstan’s commitment to ensuring the security of nuclear material,” he said.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Kazakhstan was left with its largest repository of nuclear material. Under Soviet rule, it had been the largest test site for nuclear weapons, leaving entire areas uninhabitable and decimated by radiation, including cities like Emba, Sary-Shagan, Baikonur, and Semipalatinsk, better known as “The Polygon,” and the Soviet Union’s largest test site.

Despite the temptation to keep the newfound republic stockpiled and armed with nuclear weapons, President Nursultan Nazarbayev renounced nuclear defense capabilities and closed down the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site on August 29, 1991. Together with Moscow, Minsk, and Kiev, Astana joined the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed in Lisbon on May 22, 1992.

Two years later, the American and Kazakhstani governments launched covert project dubbed “Sapphire” in a bid to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation as part of the US Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Through that initiative the US removed nearly 600 kilograms (1,100 lbs) of weapons-grade enriched uranium placed in a warehouse at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant outside Ust-Kamenogorsk.

Energy-rich Kazakhstan is a staunch supporter of global nonproliferation efforts. It remains a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, to promote nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, as well as control, accounting and physical security of nuclear material.

On August 29 – exactly 26 years after shutting down facilities in Semipalatinsk – Kazakhstan launched the world’s first low enriched uranium bank in the northeastern city of Oskemen, close to the country’s border with Russia. The bank contains 90 metric tons of low-enriched uranium, suitable to make fuel for a light water nuclear reactor. Countries that make withdrawals from the bank will be those that rely on nuclear power but lack enrichment facilities to provide fuel for their power plants’ nuclear reactors. The bank is owned and managed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“We have showed political will and refused membership in the nuclear club. Despite the tough confrontation of the then Soviet leadership, I signed a decree on closing the test site,” President Nazarbayev said, referring to Semipalatinsk. “The day of August 29 became a benchmark for the whole of Central Asia, a region that became free of nuclear weapons.”