UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calls on all nuclear weapons states to follow suit of Kazakhstan

06.04.2010

7 April 2010 - The Secretary-General visited the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in Kazakhstan today, becoming the first head of the United Nations to do so. He flew by helicopter to the remote Ground Zero site, where atomic bomb tests were carried out.

“Kazakhstan has shown extraordinary leadership in nuclear disarmament. In 1991, soon after the independence of Kazakhstan, President Nazarbayev took extraordinary leadership by closing the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site and banished all nuclear weapons', Ban Ki-moon said, "Here today in Semipalatinsk, I call on all nuclear weapons states to follow suit of Kazakhstan. You encouraged the United Nations General Assembly to establish August 29 as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. And you are working to help people experiencing the adverse effects of nuclear testing", he admitted.

The Secretary-General commended U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for concluding a nuclear weapons reduction treaty, which they are to sign on Thursday. He also described President Obama's nuclear posture review as an important initiative. He said, “I cannot think of a more fitting - even poignant - place to hear this news.”

In Kurchatov, Ban Ki-moon visited the Museum of the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology of the National Nuclear Center, founded in 1972 on the basis of the scientific and experimental unit of the test site. The UN delegation also visited the Tokamak experimental thermonuclear material-testing, one of several types of magnetic confinement devices, and the most-researched candidates for producing controlled thermonuclear fusion power.