A nuclear-weapon-free zone for Central Asia
By Ramesh Thakur
An NWFZ in the strategically important Central Asian region will be a confidence-building measure, adding a new normative barrier to the acquisition or use of nuclear weapons
ON Sept 15 1997, foreign ministers of the five Central Asian republics issued the Tashkent Statement proposing a nuclear- weapon-free zone (NWFZ) for Central Asia. Almost the entire southern hemisphere is already covered by such zones. Central Asia could be the first NWFZ entirely in the northern hemisphere.
This will complete the remarkable turnaround of Kazakhstan which had the fourth biggest nuclear-weapons capability after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
An NWFZ bans the possession and deployment of nuclear weapons by members and their use against them. It may prohibit nuclear testing, even for "peaceful" purposes, and dumping of nuclear waste.
Central Asia, containing stocks of nuclear material and a number of nuclear facilities, will also be keenly interested in preventing the leakage and theft of nuclear materials and skills.
Why do they want a NWFZ? ... it will not after all eliminate the possibility of nuclear-weapons use in Central Asia. Because it will promote security and raise the threshold of nuclear initiation.
As NPT parties, all five republics are already legally committed to non-nuclear status.
In his address to the Tashkent Conference on Sept 15, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov remarked that nuclear weapons are irrelevant to improving the welfare of Central Asian people and societies.
The renunciation of the nuclear option will help Central Asia integrate more fully and rapidly into international political and economic structures.
An NWFZ will add a new normative barrier to nuclear-weapons acquisition and construct a legal-cum-normative barrier to importing nuclear weapons.
The Big Five provide legally binding commitments not to use nuclear weapons against zonal members.
Most importantly, it will take away nuclear weapons from any future regional security architecture. And it will preclude the possibility of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan from ever being used as a testing site again.
A Central Asian NWFZ will be a confidence-building measure, not simply in the obvious sense of being a legal mechanism for members to assure each other of peaceful intentions, but also because the processes of creating and maintaining it help create habits of dialogue, mutual trust and cooperation which are prerequisites for tackling other regional security problems.
Regional discussion and negotiation will be needed for agreement on the modalities of the NWFZ, the scope of its prohibitions, a regional verification machinery linked to the IAEA safeguards system and the best means of integrating the nuclear powers with the NWFZ. This poses the biggest potential problems.
Central Asia is the geopolitical crossroads of Russia, China, India, Pakistan and the Middle East.
Can Russia's security commitments to former Soviet republics in the "near abroad" be reconciled with zonal prohibitions on nuclear weapons? Russian participants at the conference hinted at this problem with varying degrees of openness.
Nor were the Chinese reticent in counter-insisting that zonal obligations must override alliance requirements.
Ironically, 500 troops of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division were conducting joint military exercises in Central Asia during the week of the conference.
The zone's relationship with de facto nuclear powers India and Pakistan is even more problematical. Their proximity and historical connections to Central Asia requires that they be treated on par with the Big Five in binding assurances against breaching the NWFZ.
But how can they legally sign such a treaty without openly declaring their nuclear hands? Spokesmen from both countries complain about being asked to assume the responsibilities of nuclear powers without any of the privileges, such as permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
Suspicions also persist about clandestine efforts by Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. How will this be handled by the Central Asian zone?
Finally, there is the problem of the Caspian Sea.
The oil and gas fields under it and in the lands around it are believed to contain the most concentrated mass of untapped wealth in the world.
Countries with borders around the Caspian include Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Russia. This creates many legal and security problems for the status of the Caspian Sea vis-a-vis a Central Asian NWFZ.
By maintaining the momentum for their continued stigmatization, NWFZs sustain the structure of normative restraints on the acquisition, multiplication, deployment and use of nuclear weapons.
An NWFZ will embed and institutionalize the non-proliferation norm in Central Asia and so ensure higher levels of compliance with worldwide arms control regimes.
NWFZs are integral elements in the mosaic of international action on the marginalization and delegitimisation of the entire edifice of nuclear weapons (possession, testing, deployment, doctrines and strategies).
They consolidate nonproliferation successes and maintain the momentum to de-nuclearisation ahead of the willingness of the Big Five to renounce their nuclear arsenals.
Professor Ramesh Thakur is Head, Peace Research Centre, Australian National University.