Twenty years ago today, representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan gathered in Semipalatinsk, now Semey, to sign a treaty that would make Central Asia the first nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Northern Hemisphere. It was also the first such zone established in a region where nuclear weapons had actually been tested and deployed.
I remember that day well. I was there as a representative of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Kazakhstan was represented by its then Foreign Minister, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who signed the Treaty on behalf of the country. The ceremony itself, held at the Abai State Kazakh Musical Drama Theater, was relatively modest.
Its significance was anything but. The idea of a nuclear-weapon-free Central Asia was hardly inevitable. It was first proposed by Uzbekistan at the UN General Assembly in 1993 and developed over the following years, as the newly independent states were dealing with borders, economic dislocation and an uncertain security environment.
The region also carried an extraordinary nuclear legacy: the Semipalatinsk test site, uranium mining, radioactive waste and communities affected by decades of Soviet nuclear activities. Yet the five Central Asian states made a strategic choice. They decided that their common security would not be built around nuclear weapons.
But translating the idea into a legally binding regional commitment was not an easy process as it required persistence and, above all, agreement among all the parties. The Treaty prohibits the development, production, acquisition, possession, stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices.
At the same time, it preserves the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Its parties also accepted important obligations relating to IAEA safeguards and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. There is more to the Semipalatinsk Treaty than the absence of nuclear weapons.
It was also an early demonstration that the five Central Asian states could develop a common approach to a question of fundamental importance to their security and future. That is perhaps the Treaty’s most interesting legacy today. Central Asia has changed considerably since 2006.
The region is more economically connected, more strategically important and more closely engaged with the major powers than it was two decades ago. At the same time, the international arms control architecture has come under unprecedented pressure. Nuclear rhetoric has returned to the center of global security debates, while confidence in many traditional arms-control arrangements has weakened.
Against this backdrop, it is tempting to regard the Semipalatinsk Treaty as a relic of a more optimistic era. I would argue the opposite. Its importance lies precisely in the fact that it was created under difficult circumstances and has survived major changes in the regional and global environment.
The Treaty entered into force in 2009 after all five states completed ratification. In 2014, all five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the Non-Proliferation Treaty signed its Protocol, committing themselves, among other things, not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the Central Asian parties.