Kazakhstan
During the high-level segment of the UN General Assembly in September 2023, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, said: ‘Of all the challenges we face, perhaps the most destructive is the threat of use of nuclear weapons.’ He proposed a strategic plan ‘for the complete renunciation of nuclear weapons by 2045’, which ‘could well be the most significant contribution to global security of this generation of leaders’. He pledged Kazakhstan’s ‘continuous commitment’ to the TPNW.[1]
TPNW Status
| TPNW Article 1(1) prohibitions: Compliance in 2023 | ||
|---|---|---|
| (a) | Develop, produce, manufacture, acquire | Compliant |
| Test | Compliant | |
| Possess or stockpile | Compliant | |
| (b) | Transfer | Compliant |
| (c) | Receive transfer or control | Compliant |
| (d) | Use | Compliant |
| Threaten to use | Compliant | |
| (e) | Assist, encourage or induce | Non-compliant |
| (f) | Seek or receive assistance | Compliant |
| (g) | Allow stationing, installation, deployment | Compliant |
| TPNW voting and participation | |
|---|---|
| UNGA resolution on TPNW (latest vote) | Voted yes (2023) |
| Participated in 2MSP (2023) | Yes |
| 1MSP delegation size (% women) | 6 (0%) |
| Adoption of TPNW (7 July 2017) | Voted yes |
| Participated in TPNW negotiations (2017) | Yes |
| Negotiation mandate (A/RES/71/258) | Voted yes |
| Other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) treaties | |
|---|---|
| Party to an NWFZ | Yes (Ratified 2008, Semipalatinsk) |
| Party to the NPT | Yes (Acceded 1994) |
| Ratified the CTBT | Yes (Ratified 2002) |
| Party to the BWC | Yes (Acceded 2007) |
| Party to the CWC | Yes (Ratified 2000) |
| IAEA safeguards and fissile material | |
|---|---|
| Safeguards agreement | Yes (11 Aug 1995) |
| TPNW Art 3(2) deadline | N/A |
| Small Quantities Protocol | No |
| Additional Protocol | Yes |
| Enrichment facilities/reprocessing plants | No |
| HEU stocks | 1-10 tons |
| Plutonium stocks | No |
Latest developments
Kazakhstan participated in the Second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW (2MSP) in November and December 2023 and was confirmed as president of the third meeting in March 2025. Its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murat Nurtleu, said that Kazakhan’s key priorities during its presidency would be to establish an international trust fund for victim assistance and environment remediation, to make progress in universalising the Treaty, and to ‘encourage closer dialogue’ between nuclear-armed States and TPNW supporters. He announced plans for a meeting of nuclear-weapon-free zone states in Kazakhstan in 2024 to discuss the TPNW.2
Nurtleu also said that Kazakhstan’s ratification of the TPNW in 2019 ‘was guided by our longstanding moral and political commitment to nuclear disarmament’. ‘Following a half-century of Soviet nuclear explosions at the Semipalatinsk test site, more than a million Kazakh citizens continue daily to face the tragic health consequences of radiation exposure,’ he noted. ‘Over 18,000 km2 of contaminated land … remains uninhabitable. The TPNW is therefore not just a nuclear disarmament issue; it is, we are convinced, a human health and development imperative.’3
Since the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW in 2022, Kazakhstan and Kiribati served as co-chairs of an informal working group on victim assistance, environmental remediation, international cooperation and assistance under the Treaty. They reported on their activities to the 2MSP and will continue to serve in this capacity leading up to the third meeting in 2025.3
In an effort to gain wider international recognition of the importance of addressing the legacy of the use and testing of nuclear weapons, Kazakhstan and Kiribati initiated the first-ever resolution on this topic in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly in October 2023. It was adopted with the support of 171 member states.4
Kazakhstan was also one of the co-sponsors for the 2023 resolution on the TPNW, which called upon ‘all States that have not yet done so to sign, ratify, accept, approve or accede to the Treaty at the earliest possible date’.5
In August 2023, on the International Day against Nuclear Tests, Kazakhstan hosted a Central Asian meeting on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, which brought together representatives from all States in the region to discuss the importance of the TPNW for achieving nuclear disarmament. The chair’s summary noted that the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty, or Treaty of Semipalatinsk, contains ‘many similar prohibitions’ to those found in the TPNW, and both treaties have the same goal.6
Recommendations
-
Kazakhstan should continue to encourage other states to adhere to the TPNW.
-
Kazakhstan should ensure that all the TPNW obligations are implemented domestically, through legal, administrative, and other necessary measures, including by requesting that Russia refrain from all testing of nuclear-capable missiles at Sary Shagan.