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Kazakhstan Could Serve as Disarmament Model for Iran, Officials and Experts Say By Mike Nartker WASHINGTON — Kazakhstan’s experience in disarming itself of nuclear weapons following the fall of the Soviet Union could serve as a model for other countries, most notably Iran, a panel of officials and experts said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 6). Kazakhstan’s success in transforming into a non-nuclear state, and the resultant benefits and international goodwill, can serve as an example to other countries that possess nuclear weapons or are interested in joining the nuclear club, they said. Twelve years ago, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan became simultaneously an independent country and one of the world’s largest nuclear weapons states. Among the Soviet weapons Kazakhstan inherited were 104 SS-18 ICBMs armed with a total of more than 1,000 nuclear warheads (an arsenal greater than that of China, France and the United Kingdom combined) and a fleet of 40 heavy bombers capable of carrying 370 nuclear-armed cruise missiles. In addition, Kazakhstan was also home to large sections of the Soviet WMD architecture, including the main Soviet nuclear weapons test site at Semipalatinsk — which Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev closed four months prior to the end of the Soviet Union — and the largest anthrax production site in the world at Stepnogorsk. Throughout the 1990s, Kazakhstan undertook a series of measures, with U.S. assistance, to disarm itself of the vast nuclear weapons arsenal and infrastructure that it had inherited, such as transferring its nuclear warheads and heavy bombers back to Russia, ratifying the START and Comprehensive Test Ban treaties, ratifying the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state and joining the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yesterday, Kazakh Ambassador to the United States Kanat Saudabayev said that his country had decided to renounce nuclear weapons because of the catastrophic effects of 40 years of Soviet nuclear testing on both the Kazakh people and the environment. He also said that in the early days of Kazakh independence, many elites in country were supportive of retaining the Soviet nuclear weapons left behind, noting that Kazakhstan would have been the first Muslim state to openly possess nuclear weapons. Nazarbayev made a “courageous and historic choice” to renounce nuclear weapons, Saudabayev said at yesterday’s symposium, co-hosted by the Kazakh Embassy and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Noting the threat of terrorists possibly obtaining, and using, a nuclear weapon, Saudabayev said that Kazakhstan urges the international community to “follow our example” in disarming of weapons of mass destruction. Saudabayev’s call was echoed yesterday by NTI Chief Executive Officer and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who along with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) developed the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which seeks to provide U.S. technical assistance and funding to disarmament projects in the former Soviet Union (see GSN, Dec. 12). Kazakhstan “is a model of what we must see in the 21st century,” Nunn said. In the processing of disarming, Nunn said, Nazarbayev established good relations with a number of countries around the world, including European nations and the United States. The Kazakh example demonstrates that other countries — specifically Iran, Nunn said — could both benefit and grow in stature on the world stage by remaining free of nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today). “Iran and other nations can learn from Kazakhstan,” he said. Graham Allison, head of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said yesterday that Kazakhstan needed to take a more active role in promoting the benefits of disarmament and of renouncing nuclear weapons. He also said that Kazakhstan could play a particular role in persuading Iran, whose nuclear program has long raised suspicion of being a cover for weapons development, to remain a non-nuclear state, noting the developed set of ties between the two countries. Kazakhstan “should be less modest, less reserved” about its disarmament successes, Allison said. CooperationIn addition to serving as an example of the benefits of disarmament, Kazakhstan could also serve as a model for international nonproliferation efforts, said the officials and experts. For example, Nunn called for additional international actions in the vein of “Project Sapphire” — a 1994 secret joint U.S.-Kazakh operation that removed more than 1,200 pounds of highly enriched uranium from a Kazakh site to the United States. The operation has already served as a model for a September operation to remove weapon-grade material from a Romanian research reactor, and an operation last year that removed weapon-grade material from a Yugoslav research reactor, according to Nunn (see GSN, Sept. 22). “There are many others that must take place,” he said. Nunn also said that he hoped Kazakhstan would join the Group of Eight’s Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Under the partnership, which was launched during the 2002 G-8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, the G-8 nations pledged $20 billion over 10 years for nonproliferation projects, primarily in Russia. In addition to the G-8 nations of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, several additional countries have since joined the effort (see GSN, Nov. 14). [EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Richard Lugar serves on the NTI board. NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]
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