On August 29, 1991, the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site was closed. Years later, that date took on global significance. At Kazakhstan’s initiative, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 64/35 in 2009, designating August 29 as the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The day serves as a reminder to the world of the human cost of nuclear testing and of the need to move toward a future free from the threat of nuclear weapons.
This year marks 35 years since the closure of the Semipalatinsk test site. To commemorate this milestone, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Yermek Kosherbayev and Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), issued their traditional
Joint Statement. For a people who lived through nuclear testing, 35 years is both a single moment in history and an immense journey, a journey from a land once shaken by explosions to a country that today speaks out against allowing such tragedies to happen again.
In this way, Kazakhstan transformed its own suffering into a voice heard around the world. The memory of Semipalatinsk has become a call to build a different future, one in which no land, no mother and no child will ever again live under the shadow of a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Perhaps this is the brightest lesson of this history: even after living through tragedy, a people can choose peace, hope and faith in a better future.
@PressMFAKZ
