Nazarbayev calls for ban on using scientific discoveries to create weapons of mass destruction
ASTANA. April 1 (Interfax) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev declared the need to create a global anti-nuclear movement at the Fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC.
"This is the purpose of the ATOM international project initiated by Kazakhstan, which has been gaining broad international support. As a co-chair country of the Ninth Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty [CTBT], Kazakhstan will continue to promote its universality," Nazarbayev told U.S. community leaders and politicians at the Washington headquarters of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The presidential press service posted Nazarbayev's speech.
Kazakhstan deems the active involvement in Global Nuclear Security Summits to be important, the head of state said.
"The time has come for fundamental decisions, which would prohibit the deployment of lethal weapons in outer space, on the seabed and in neutral waters of the World Ocean, and in the Arctic. There is a need to develop international agreements and a UN register, which would ban the use of scientific discoveries for the creation of new types of weapons of mass destruction," Nazarbayev said.
The Kazakh president gave a detailed account of Kazakhstan's engagement in the global anti-nuclear movement.
"Having created a nuclear-free zone in Central Asia, we call for broadening the geography of the sustainable world. This implies the widening of six nuclear-free zones in Eurasia, Latin America and Africa," he said.
An agreement on the creation of a low-enriched uranium bank in Kazakhstan, which was signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in August 2015, was an important move, Nazarbayev said.
"This is a global event. The world must see it as a key measure towards safe and peaceful uses of the atom," Nazarbayev said.
Kazakhstan has always supported international negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and has made a weighty practical input to this, the president said.