During the ceremony, the Head of State stressed that the Culture of Peace Prize presentation to him shows solidarity with the people of Kazakhstan, who experienced the nuclear experiment at the Semipalatinsk test site.
The President of Kazakhstan noted that the closure of the testing area is a key date as long as it was then that our country settled down to a course of building a world free of nuclear weapons.
- Approximately 500 explosions, equivalent to two and a half thousands of atomic bombs thrown off on Hiroshima, forever changed our relationship to the nuclear threat. Therefore we have become the first country to close the nuclear test site, voluntarily renouncing the fourth largest nuclear arsenal, and have created a nuclear-free zone in Central Asia, Nursultan Nazarbayev said.
The Head of State pointed out that the coming year for the first time in its history Kazakhstan starts its responsible mission of the UN Security Council non-permanent member for the period of 2017-2018.
- That is a great credibility extended to us by the international community. Apart from the issues of non-proliferation, we also intend to focus, together with Japan and our other partners and friends, on the issues of food, water and energy security, the President of Kazakhstan said.
Nursultan Nazarbayev expressed confidence that in the XXI century it is in the mankind’s control to get over a decent road to the world free of the nuclear threat.
- I believe that the will and intelligence of the international community, coupled with the energy of careful collective action, will hinder our planet from falling down the abyss of a nuclear catastrophe. We must not forget the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Semey, the Marshall Islands and other places. I encourage to tirelessly stand up for clearing the world from the threat of nuclear catastrophe, he said.
The Culture of Peace Special Award of the Goi Peace Foundation is given to individuals and organizations that have demonstrated the most significant contribution to dissemination and promotion of culture of peace.
