Kazakhstan urges DPRK to give up nukes

Kazakhstan is calling upon North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, Tengrinews reports citing IA Novosti-Kazakhstan.

“We urge our North Korean partners to consider the experience of Kazakhstan that voluntarily renounced its nuclear arsenal and closed down the test site [Semipalatinsk]," Nazarbayev said in a press statement after this week's talks with his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye, who was on a state visit in Astana.

He added that "nuclear weapons do not increase security of any country but create distrust towards it in the whole world”.

North Korea is among those few countries that possess nuclear weapons. In 2003 it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2006 it conducted its first nuclear test. In 2009 DPRK announced that it had developed a nuclear weapon.

In contrast with DPRK, Kazakhstan gave up its nuclear capacities voluntarily after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Back in the day when the USSR was collapsing, Kazakhstan could have become the fourth largest nukes power in the world. However, it gave up the weapons because of high costs of maintaining it on its soil and many complications that arose from possession of such an arsenal, both technical and political. In turn, Kazakhstan received international recognition and trust as a responsible member of the international community.

By Dinara Urazova