Central Asia Marks 20 Years of Its Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone With Renewed Call for Disarmament

Central Asian states mark the 20th anniversary of the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty with a joint foreign ministers' statement Credit: Kazakhstan MFAOpinion by Katsuhiro Asagiri (tokyo, japan)Friday, September 11, 2026Inter Press Service TOKYO, Japan, September 11 (IPS) - Twenty years after five Central Asian states signed a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons across their region, their foreign ministers have used the anniversary to warn that faltering arms-control agreements, nuclear modernization and deepening international mistrust are placing global security under growing strain. Central Asia Nuclear Free ZonesIn a joint statement issued on September 8, the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reaffirmed their commitment to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia (CANWFZ), signed in Semipalatinsk on September 8, 2006. The treaty entered into force in 2009, establishing what remains the first and only nuclear-weapon-free zone located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and directly bordering two nuclear-armed states, China and Russia. The anniversary falls during Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of the treaty, which ...