Articles by Marzhan Nurzhan

Dealing With the Past: Legacy of Nuclear Weapons Testing in Kazakhstan and the Cause to Advance Nuclear Disarmament

A quarter of all worldwide nuclear tests were conducted at the Semey test site for almost half a century during Soviet times. This year marks 30 years since the official closure of the nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. Despite the closure, the past follows in the form of humanitarian and environmental consequences of the nuclear…

UN committee adopts youth resolution on disarmament and non-proliferation

The First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly at its recent 74th session adopted the resolution Youth, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. The resolution recognises the role of young people as key agents for social change and acknowledges the positive contributions of youth engagement to sustainable peace and security. There were two resolutions previously adopted by…

Kazakhstan’s nuclear legacy and importance of CTBTO

I am coming from Kazakhstan, the country which inherited around 1,500 nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union making it the 4th biggest nuclear arsenal in the world at the time. For almost half a century, from 1949 until 1989, the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests above and underground at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site,…