Kazakh lawmakers today cleared the way for the rapid entry into force of a treaty banning nuclear weapons in Central Asia. The Kazakh Senate approved the pact that Astana signed in 2006 with four other countries in the region, and President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to ratify the agreement in short order (see GSN, April 3, 2007).
(Dec. 11) -
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to ratify the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone treaty soon (Attila Kisbenedek/Getty Images).
Today's Senate action, reported by the Kazakh news service, follows similar approval from the legislature's lower house late last month. Completion of the pact -- also signed by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which have all provided the necessary ratification -- would mark the end of a long effort by the five to bar not only their possession of nuclear weapons but also the stationing of other nations' nuclear weapons on the signatories' territory.
The group signed the treaty after trying, but ultimately failing, to persuade all major nuclear-armed powers to fully endorse the text, according to a backgrounder from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The treaty invites the five nuclear powers recognized by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- to sign a protocol promising to respect the provisions of the nuclear-free zone.
China and Russia are expected to support the pact, said William Potter, director of Monterey's James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, but the responses of the other three nations are in doubt.
Their primary concern has been the treaty's ambiguous language regarding the Central Asian states' commitments to prior agreements, particularly the Tashkent Treaty on Collective Security which established defense relationships among former Soviet states following the superpower's collapse.
"That treaty could be interpreted to allow the Russian Federation to deploy nuclear weapons in the region under certain circumstances," Potter said. "That’s the worst-case interpretation, but that is the fear on the part of the France, Britain and the United States."
Potter has crafted some suggestions to resolve the ambiguity, chiefly encouraging the Central Asian nations to issue a joint statement declaring that they interpret the nuclear-free zone treaty to prohibit any foreign nuclear deployments on their territories "under any circumstances." In addition, the three concerned nuclear powers could join a Russian proposal to promise not to deploy their nuclear weapons on another nation's soil, Potter said, but that would require the United States to remove its weapons that have been based in NATO countries for decades.
Nuclear powers have long had concerns about nuclear-free zones, Potter said, including well-established treaty areas in Latin America, the South Pacific and Africa.
"At an abstract level, the nuclear-weapon states don’t dislike the concept, but in practice they have never found a nuclear weapon-free zone treaty that they liked," he said.
Regardless of the nuclear powers concerns, the Central Asian zone is now on the verge of becoming a reality, an accomplishment Potter applauded in a release today.
"Attainment of the [Central Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone] comes at a propitious moment for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, and at a time when the nonproliferation regime is under severe strain," he said. "To a greater extent than the previous zones, the one in Central Asia showcases a commitment to nuclear disarmament by a region which previously had nuclear weapons on its territory and continues to live in a nuclear-armed neighborhood. Surrounded by Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, and Israeli nuclear weapons, and housing Russian and U.S. military bases, the new zone serves as a powerful example of nonproliferation."