The UN's unfinished agenda

August 29 was International Day against Nuclear Tests, but we are reminded that the international instrument to put an end to all forms of nuclear testing has yet to come into force.

BERLIN (IDN) - For the seventh year in succession, the world would commemorate on August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests, which would coincide with the 25th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site the central Asian republic inherited from the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its breakup.

The ATOM Project initiated a global moment of silence on that day to honour all victims of nuclear weapons testing. Kazakhstan suffered more than 450 Soviet nuclear weapons tests at the Semipalatinsk site beginning August 29, 1949 and ending on that date in 1991 when the country's first and current President Nursultan Nazarbayev, responding to a civil society campaign, shut down the site.

It was at the initiative of the Republic of Kazakhstan, together with a large number of sponsors and cosponsors that the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly on December 2, 2009 unanimously adopted resolution 64/35 declaring August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests.

The resolution calls for increasing awareness and education "about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world".

This year's commemoration would be accompanied, among others, by the international conference 'Building a Nuclear Weapon Free World' in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

It is being co-hosted by Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov, Senate President Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND).

- Third World Network Features