Within the framework of the project ‘Building Capacity on Multilateral Verification of Nuclear Disarmament’ implemented by VERTIC in collaboration with the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC), ISTC and the Eurasian National University (ENU) organized on 6 May 2021 an online Forum for university faculty and students on the topic ‘Kazakhstan in Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation’. The event also coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Eurasian National University
The key note speaker was Dr. Dastan Yeleukenov, Adviser to the Director, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. He is a renowned nuclear scientist and a diplomat who served as Kazakhstan’s ambassador to Sweden and MFA Director for International Multilateral Cooperation. He provided insights from the formation of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy on nuclear disarmament and the specific circumstances that shaped major steps towards its implementation – from the closure of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, to the renouncement of the inherited nuclear ballistic arsenal, from the accession to the NPT as a non-possessor state, to the establishment of the Central Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. Ambassador Yeleukenov answered questions related to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, including through the ongoing construction of the NPP in Uzbekistan, and the planned NPP in Kazakhstan. He also described as logical the expectations about the renewal of the implementation of the JCPOA between Iran and the P-5 plus Germany.
