UN / NUCLEAR TREATY

STORY: UN / NUCLEAR TREATY
SOURCE: UNTV
TRT: 1.35
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ NATS

DATELINE: 30 MARCH 2009, NEW YORK CITY/ FILE

SHOTLIST:

FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, exterior UN building

30 MARCH 2009, NEW YORK CITY

2. Wide shot, dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Nurbek Jeenbaev, Permanent Representative of Kyrgyzstan to the United Nations:
“The establishment of the zone is not a concession to the political pressure, but rather a necessity to provide secure coexistence of the people living in the region, relative to the consequences of arms race in the area nuclear confronting.”
4. Close up, photographer
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Aksoltan Ataeva, Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations:
“While welcoming this initiative, we believe that establishment of the nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia will become a powerful factor for the maintenance of peace, regional stability and cooperation of our countries. It will be a collective contribution to the ongoing development of the world community and certainly an essential element to strengthening regional security.”
6. Wide shot, press
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Byrganym Aitimova, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations:
“Kazakhstan kept at the beginning of the eve our independence time, we had kept in our hands 80 percent of nuclear weapons of Soviet Union; and we had big temptation, and we had some request to keep it. But we calculated how suffer we were at that time already, because we didn’t know anything about the consequences of such kind of explosions.”
8. Wide shot, dais


STORYLINE:

Central Asia became the Northern Hemisphere's first nuclear-weapons-free zone with the entry into force of the Central Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty on 21 March.

All five Central Asian nations – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – have ratified the Treaty, first formally proposed by Uzbek President Islam Karimov at the General Assembly in 1993.

At a press conference at the United Nations, Kyrgyzstan’s Ambassador Nurbek Jeenbaev said that the establishment of the zone is “a necessity” in order to provide “secure coexistence of the people living in the region”.

The agreement, which opened for signature in September 2006, covers an area where nuclear weapons previously existed.

Turkmenistan’s Aksoltan Ataeva commented that the establishment of the nuclear-weapon-free zone will become “a powerful factor” for the maintenance of peace, regional stability and cooperation of all countries in the region. She added that it will be a “collective contribution to the ongoing development of the world community" as well as “an essential element to strengthening regional security.”

Kazakhstan, which endured over 400 atomic blasts at the Semipalatinsk testing ground in the country's north, previously had the fourth largest nuclear weapon arsenal in the world, but renounced its arsenal after gaining independence.

Kazak Ambassador Byrganym Aitimova told reporters that her country had held “80 percent of nuclear weapons of Soviet Union” at the time of its independence, but the country had resisted the “big temptation” to keep them.
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Central Asia joins the four other nuclear-weapon-free zones: Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, South-East Asia and Africa.