Press Releases
Twentieth Anniversary Of Last Nuclear Test At Semei
U.S. Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland
18 June, 2009
Twenty years ago when the Soviet Union closed the Semei Nuclear Test Site, no one would ever have predicted then that today the President of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ambassador of the independent Russian Federation, and the Ambassador of the United States would stand together as partners to mark this significant anniversary.
It is very well known around the world that one of the great achievements of Kazakhstan and its president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been to renounce the nuclear weapons it inherited at independence and to become a leader in nuclear nonproliferation. For that great achievement, we honor President Nazarbayev and his vision of a nuclear-free world.
What is much less well known is the highly successful but quiet partnership among Kazakhstan, the United States, and Russia to ensure that the dangerous remnants at this test site never fall into the hands of terrorists or others who would seek to do evil in the world.
The nuclear laboratories of the United States and Russia have conferred closely, and continue to confer, to identify those specific sites within this larger test-site territory that need to be sealed off from the rest of the world. Beginning in 1996, the government of the United States, in successful partnership with the appropriate agencies of the government of Kazakhstan, and in close consultation with the government of Russia, has worked, and continues to work, to ensure the total security of this site. That work will continue, and will even be accelerated, because it is the policy of U.S. President Barak Obama to work intensively to achieve a nuclear-free world.
President Obama announced this visionary policy during a speech in Prague, the Czech Republic, on April 5 this year. I want to quote some of what he said.
“The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War. No nuclear war was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union, but generations lived with the knowledge that their world could be erased in a single flash of light.
“Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abounds. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build or steal one. Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation regime.
“The United States will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same.
“To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians this year that will be legally binding and sufficiently bold.
“To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
“To cut off the building blocks needed for a bomb, the United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in state nuclear weapons.
“We will strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a basis for cooperation. Countries with nuclear weapons will move towards disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them, and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy.
“We should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation. That must be the right of every nation that renounces nuclear weapons, especially developing countries embarking on peaceful programs.
“Finally, we must ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. One terrorist with one nuclear weapon could unleash massive destruction. Al Qaeda has said it seeks a bomb and that it would have no problem with using it. And we know that there is unsecured nuclear material across the globe.
“So today I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. We will set new standards, expand our cooperation with Russia, pursue new partnerships to lock down these sensitive materials.
“Human destiny will be what we make of it. Let us honor our past by reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our divisions, build upon our hopes, accept our responsibility to leave this world more prosperous and more peaceful than we found it. Together we can do it.”
