Kazakhstan, 2009

At the outset, I would like to congratulate

Mr. Treki on his election to the high post of President

of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session and

wish him every success as he presides over the session.

Eight years ago, on 11 September, Ms. Zhannetta

Tsoy, a citizen of Kazakhstan, having kissed her

daughter and husband, left for her first day at a new job

in New York’s tallest building. Two hours later, she

perished, along with 3,000 Americans and citizens of

other 91 countries. She was buried under the debris of

what had once been the World Trade Centre’s Twin

Towers. On that day, as Kazakhstan’s ambassador in

Washington D.C., along with all Americans and others,

I felt acutely how fragile, vulnerable and

interdependent our world had become. This terrorist act

and the world’s unity in its strict condemnation showed

that only together can we make our present and our

future safer and better. Indeed, the key to the

successful resolution of today’s most acute problems

lies precisely in the world’s unity and understanding.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan

and our entire people have supported the global fight

against terrorism from the start by assisting the efforts

of the international coalition in Afghanistan. However,

there has never been and there will never be a purely

military solution to the Afghan problem. We note with

satisfaction that coalition members have begun to pay

more attention to non-military aspects of security.

To the best of its ability, Kazakhstan is also

assisting the international efforts to rehabilitate

Afghanistan. We provide considerable humanitarian aid

to that country. Moreover, we are developing a long-

term educational programme to train qualified Afghan

53 09-52470

specialists, and are also considering other forms of

assistance to that country.

Long-term stability in Afghanistan is impossible

without effective measures to tackle illicit drug

trafficking. The Central Asia Regional Information and

Coordination Centre has been established in Almaty,

with the support of the United Nations, to fight illicit

drug trafficking. As the Chairperson-in-Office of the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

(OSCE) in 2010, I intend to make the stabilization of

the situation in Afghanistan — a regional neighbour of

the OSCE — one of the organization’s greatest

priorities.

The prospect of the proliferation of nuclear

weapons, along with the risk of their acquisition and

use by terrorist organizations, remains one of the most

serious threats to mankind. As a country that has

experienced the horrors of nuclear tests, shut down the

world’s second-largest nuclear testing site, at

Semipalatinsk, and voluntarily renounced the world’s

fourth-largest nuclear and missile arsenal, Kazakhstan

has an absolute moral right to call for more decisive

action in the area of disarmament and for the radical

strengthening of the non-proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction regime. In particular, Kazakhstan

deems it important to ensure the soonest possible entry

into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban

Treaty. We welcome the efforts of United States

President Barack Obama to give new impetus to the

non-proliferation process and to eliminate the nuclear

threat.

Kazakhstan is in favour of strengthening and

ensuring the universality of the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). We must

recognize that the Treaty is asymmetric in that it

provides for sanctions only against non-nuclear-

weapon States, whereas the nuclear Powers themselves

should set the example of reducing and renouncing

their nuclear arsenals. In this regard, Kazakhstan

welcomed the unanimous adoption yesterday of

Security Council resolution 1887 (2009) and believes

that this historic decision opens a new era in

humankind’s efforts to create a world without nuclear

weapons. It is gratifying that the measures being

undertaken today by the international community

reflects the principled position that President

Nazarbayev has expressed more than once from this

rostrum and in bilateral meetings with heads of

nuclear-weapon States and of States with nuclear

ambitions.

It is necessary now more than ever to take even

more decisive actions. Our President has proposed the

development of a new universal treaty on

comprehensive horizontal and vertical nuclear

non-proliferation. The configuration of the new treaty

and its contents will largely depend on the proposals of

all interested States. An effective measure to strengthen

the non-proliferation regime could be the establishment

of an international nuclear fuel bank under the auspices

of the International Atomic Energy Commission.

Kazakhstan is ready to consider the possibility of

locating it on our territory.

One important contribution made by Kazakhstan

and other States of Central Asia to the implementation

of the NPT was the entry into force in March of the

Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central

Asia. The peculiarity of the Zone is that it is located

between two of the world’s largest nuclear Powers. The

Zone could play a large practical role in preventing the

uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear materials and in

countering nuclear terrorism. We count on support for

the Central Asian Zone, above all from the nuclear

Powers, including their possible extension of negative

security guarantees. We support the United States of

America’s initiative to convene a global nuclear

security summit next year.

I wish to draw the attention of the General

Assembly to a proposal of the President of Kazakhstan

on declaring 29 August international day for a world

free of nuclear weapons. That date has deep symbolical

meaning. On that day in 1949, the Soviet Union

conducted its first nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk test

site in Kazakhstan, and on the same day in 1991 the

test site was shut down forever by decree of our

Government. We hope that the General Assembly will

support this initiative.

Today, humankind is experiencing the most

serious global financial and economic crisis in decades.

According to the International Monetary Fund,

approximately 50 States have edged to the brink of an

economic catastrophe. At the same time, the present

crisis was largely inevitable. Unfortunately, the world’s

economic development and the great leap forward in

technology over the past 60 years could not solve such

eternal problems as poverty and hunger. The gap

between the rich and the poor continues to grow. More

09-52470 54

than a billion people live on less than $1 a day. Despite

our exceptional achievements in modern science and

medicine, almost 10 million children under five die

every year of curable diseases. More than 30 million

people worldwide live with HIV, while only 3 million

of those have access to antiretroviral therapy.

The economic crisis has forced us to rethink and

revisit many conceptual approaches that earlier seemed

etched in stone. It has demonstrated once again the

urgency of unifying all States’ efforts in addressing

modern challenges. The leader of our country was

among the first to share his vision for the world’s post-

crisis development. He proposed drafting an

international law on a single world currency, and the

eventual establishment of a world emissions centre, a

world anti-monopoly currency committee and a world

committee on market freedom. The United Nations

with its structural bodies and specialized agencies is

the only global organization capable of addressing such

large-scale issues.

At a time of acute social and economic

breakdowns, the danger of inter-ethnic and

inter-religious conflicts increases considerably.

Located at the confluence of Asia and Europe and

having maintained peace and harmony in a multi-ethnic

and multireligious country throughout its years of

independence, Kazakhstan is ready to act as a bridge of

mutual understanding and tolerance between the East

and the West.

As Chair of the OSCE in 2010 and of the 2011

ministerial conference of the Organization of the

Islamic Conference, Kazakhstan is eager fully to use

this unique opportunity to strengthen constructive

cooperation between diverse cultures and civilizations

and to take concrete measures on this issue.

Furthermore, since 2003 our country has hosted three

Congresses of Leaders of World and Traditional

Religions, supported by the United Nations.

At Kazakhstan’s initiative, the General Assembly

adopted resolution 62/90 at its sixty-second session,

declaring 2010 the International Year for the

Rapprochement of Cultures. We call on United Nations

Member States to participate actively in celebrating the

Year. Kazakhstan fully supports the goals of the

Alliance of Civilizations and calls on all Member

States and agencies of the United Nations system to

contribute to strengthening tolerance and mutual

understanding in the world.

In the current circumstances, the regional aspect

of solving global problems takes on added importance.

Our country is firmly committed to the consistent

strengthening of regional cooperation for security and

development in Central Asia. A unique security

architecture is being created in Eurasia, its most

important elements being organizations such as the

OSCE, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-

building Measures in Asia (CICA), the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security

Treaty Organization and NATO. In that regard, CICA,

convened as a result of an initiative introduced by

President Nazarbayev from this rostrum in 1992, has

become an effective mechanism for strengthening

regional security and cooperation. In 2010, as our

country takes up the chairmanship of the OSCE, we

intend to work for the good of all its member States to

strengthen the organization’s effectiveness in

addressing new challenges and threats, as well as to

further strengthen confidence-building and security

measures in the Euro-Atlantic community.

In today’s rapidly changing world, the adaptation

of the United Nations to modern realities is an

important task for all Member States. Kazakhstan

supports the reform process for the United Nations and

its main bodies based on the principled position of the

need to increase the effectiveness, authority and

relevance of our global Organization. We are

convinced that there is no alternative to the United

Nations in the modern world, and there never will be.

We support reforms on three principal tracks:

revitalization of the work of the General Assembly,

reform of the Security Council and coherence of the

United Nations system.

Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Junior said:

“Men often hate each other because they fear

each other; they fear each other because they do

not know each other; they do not know each other

because they cannot communicate; they cannot

communicate because they are separated.”

Regrettably, those words are often true today, but they

should not be so tomorrow. In an age of globalization

and unprecedented interdependence in the world, there

should no longer be mistrust, fear and hatred, but the

principles of trust, understanding and cooperation

should triumph. Only together can we properly address

the difficult challenges facing humankind today and

make our world safer and better.