OPANAL celebrates the signature of the Protocol to the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone (CANWFZ) Treaty by the Nuclear Weapon States
OPANAL celebrates the signature of the Protocol to the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone (CANWFZ) Treaty by the nuclear weapon States – The Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia is the fifth of its kind to be established in the world
Mexico City, 26 June 2014.
Member States of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) welcomed the signature of the Protocol to the Treaty of the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia by the Nuclear-Weapon States (NWS – China, France, Russia, the United States of America and the United Kingdom). This represents the formal commitment in which the NWS undertake not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the parties to the CANWFZ Treaty (Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), which prohibits the possession, development, production, acquisition, storage, stationing or use of any nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device in its scope of application. The signing ceremony of the Protocol to the Central Asian NWFZ Treaty was held on 6 May 2014, in New York City, on the occasion of the third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
The 33 OPANAL Member States acknowledge the efforts of the Central Asian countries to achieve the full validity of the Zone, the first of its kind to be established in the Northern Hemisphere, covering an area where there were once nuclear weapons.
OPANAL Member States express their concern regarding the reservations and/or interpretative declarations made by the aforementioned NWS to this Protocol, which were mentioned in their statements delivered at the signing ceremony.
OPANAL Member States strongly believe that the signing of the Protocols to NWFZ Treaties by the NWS is essential to the full consolidation of these Zones. In this respect, they express that any restrictions to the terms and scope of such protocols would be detrimental to the goal and purpose of the NWFZ Treaties.
The NWFZ in Central Asia is the fifth Zone to be established in a densely populated area. The first Zone of this kind was negotiated and established in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco, 1969) and served as a model for the creation of subsequent Zones in the South Pacific (1986), Southeast Asia (1997), Africa (2009), Central Asia (2009) and Mongolia (which unilaterally declared itself nuclear-weapon-free, 2000).
[source: OPANAL]