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Prospects for a central Asian nuclear‐weapon‐free zoneScott Parrish aa Senior Research Associate with the Newly Independent States (NIS) NonproliferationProject at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) , Monterey Institute of InternationalStudiesPublished online: 05 Feb 2008.

To cite this article: Scott Parrish (2001) Prospects for a central Asian nuclear‐weapon‐free zone, The Nonproliferation Review,8:1, 141-148, DOI: 10.1080/10736700108436845

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SCOTT PARRISH

Report

Prospects for a Central AsianNuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

SCOTT PARRISH1

Scott Parrish is a Senior Research Associate with the Newly Independent States (NIS) Nonproliferation Project atthe Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies.

The initiative for a Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (CAN WFZ) now appears to have comefull circle. When it was first proposed in 1993,

its realization appeared improbable, if not Utopian. Fouryears later, in 1997, when the five Central Asian presi-dents endorsed the concept in the Almaty Declaration,and the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution sup-porting it, the prospects for the establishment of aCANWFZ appeared solid. At the end of 2000, however,its prospects again look gloomy. Developments since1999, including the increased importance of nuclearweapons in Russian national security policy and the re-surgence of regional rivalries and insurgencies in theCentral Asian region, have combined to place the estab-lishment of a CANWFZ in serious doubt. Although theCentral Asian states have negotiated almost all of a drafttreaty establishing a CANWFZ, they have reached dead-lock on a few remaining provisions regarding possibletransit of nuclear weapons through the zone and the re-lationship of the CANWFZ treaty to other internationalagreements. The Central Asian states have made onlyminor progress on these issues in the past year, and theunderlying conditions blocking further steps forwardseem unlikely to change in the immediate future.

As a result, a CANWFZ appears unlikely to be estab-lished soon. Nevertheless, one should not forget that thenegotiations to establish some of the existing nuclearweapon-free zones (NWFZs) took many years to reacha successful conclusion. While recent progress has beenslow, the Central Asian states show no sign of abandon-ing their effort to create a CANWFZ. If the political cli-mate changes in important respects, the initiative mayregain momentum. If the United States and Russia takesteps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their na-tional security policies, for example, it could simplifythe negotiations. Continued efforts by international andnon-governmental organizations to assist the CentralAsian countries in dealing with the substantial legacyof the Soviet nuclear weapons program that they inher-ited may also move the initiative forward over the longerterm. Increasing international cooperation on environ-mental security issues associated with nuclear weaponsproduction could also provide an additional incentive tothe Central Asian states to overcome the obstacles thatare currently blocking progress toward a CANWFZ.Although this emphasis on the potential negative envi-ronmental effects of nuclear industry may cause otherstates with active nuclear programs concern, enhancingenvironmental security has long been one of the central

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objectives of the Central Asian states in seeking to es-tablish a CANWFZ, and it may yet prove to be the cata-lyst that brings them together to finish the job.

BACKGROUND: DEVELOPMENT OF THECANWFZ CONCEPT

The initiative for a CANWFZ reflects the growingsupport in the international community for the idea ofestablishing NWFZs. Since Poland proposed the firstNWFZ in the Rapacki Plan of 1958, four NWFZs havebeen established in populated areas of the world, includ-ing Latin America (1967), the South Pacific (1985),Southeast Asia (1995), and Africa (1996). NWFZs nowcover the inhabited areas of the southern hemisphere,and additional treaties ban nuclear weapons from outerspace and the seabed.2 NWFZs emerged as, and haveremained, measures of both nonproliferation and disar-mament. On the one hand, NWFZs are intended to pre-vent the emergence of new nuclear weapon states byaddressing regional security concerns and giving statesin a particular region additional confidence that theirneighbors will not develop a nuclear capability. On theother hand, the slow expansion of NWFZs across theglobe can also be seen as a step toward the ultimate abo-lition of nuclear weapons.

The idea of a CANWFZ can trace its roots back tothe 1992 initiative by Mongolia declaring itself a NWFZ.In its statement to the First Main Committee of the U.N.General Assembly announcing this initiative, Mongoliaalso declared its support for other regional disarmamentmeasures, including a regional NWFZ.3 The first for-mal proposal for a CANWFZ was made by UzbekistaniPresident Islam Karimov at the 48th session of the U.N.General Assembly in 1993.4 In 1994, at the 49th ses-sion of the U.N. General Assembly, Kyrgyzstan voicedsupport for the establishment of a CANWFZ.5 The cre-ation of a CANWFZ was the subject of a proposal bythe Kyrgyzstani and Uzbekistani delegations at the 1995Review and Extension conference of the state parties tothe Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weap-ons (NPT)6. At the 51st session of the U.N. GeneralAssembly in October 1996, Kyrgyzstan and Mongoliasubmitted a draft resolution on the issue, although it wassubsequently withdrawn when it did not receive the sup-port of the other states in the region.7

None of these proposals made substantial headwaybecause a regional consensus did not emerge on the is-

sue until early 1997. In large measure, the lack of re-gional consensus derived from the divergent foreignpolicy goals of the Central Asian states. Some of thestates retained close ties to Russia through the Common-wealth of Independent States (CIS), such as Kazakhstan,while others, like Turkmenistan, took a much more in-dependent stance, and tried to distance themselves fromRussia as part of the process of fashioning a new post-Soviet national identity. Rivalry over regional leader-ship and status, in particular between Kazakhstan andUzbekistan, also hindered the emergence of a consen-sus about the establishment of a CANWFZ.

The crucial step in the process of moving theCANWFZ from an abstract proposal to a concrete policyinitiative was taken on February 27,1997, when the fivepresidents of the Central Asian states issued the AlmatyDeclaration endorsing the creation of a CANWFZ.8 Thedeclaration specifically placed the establishment of theCANWFZ in the context of the environmental challengesfaced by all five Central Asian states. Each of these stateshoused parts of the former Soviet nuclear infrastructure,and they now confront common problems of environ-mental damage resulting from the production andtesting of Soviet nuclear weapons. For example, theSoviet Union conducted hundreds of nuclear tests atSemipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, while uranium for Sovietnuclear weapons was mined and milled in Kazakhstan,Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

It was this common focus on nuclear-related environ-mental challenges, as well as the desire to foster broaderregional cooperation, that prompted the Central Asianleaders to forge the regional consensus that had previ-ously been lacking. This top-level political endorsementof the CANWFZ concept opened the way to the firstpractical steps toward its realization. It also met one ofthe internationally recognized criteria for the establish-ment of a NWFZ, which states that they should be es-tablished "on the basis of arrangements freely arrived atamong the States of the region concerned."9 Largelybecause it does not share a common border with theformer Soviet Central Asian states, Mongolia was notincluded in this CANWFZ initiative. However, the Cen-tral Asian states generally support Mongolia's nuclear-weapons-free status, and they acknowledge that theyhave drawn inspiration from Mongolia's example.

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The regional consensus was further emphasized at theApril 1997 session of the NPT Preparatory Committee(PrepCom), when the states of the region issued a jointstatement formally calling attention to the Almaty Dec-laration. The five Central Asian states subsequently col-laborated in holding an international conference on theissue in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from October 14-16,1997.At this conference, experts from the four existingNWFZs discussed lessons that might be useful to theCentral Asians as they undertake the drafting of theirown regional NWFZ treaty. Following the conference,the five Central Asian foreign ministers issued a jointstatement, reaffirming their commitment to establish aCANWFZ and calling on the United Nations and otherinterested states to lend all possible assistance to the pro-cess of its establishment.10

In the wake of the Almaty Declaration and theTashkent conference, a number of non-nuclear weaponstates endorsed the proposed CANWFZ at the UnitedNations. This support included a statement by the Non-Aligned Movement, and individual endorsements bycountries such as Australia, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia,Mongolia, New Zealand, and Poland. This internationalsupport quickly grew to include most of the internationalcommunity, including, at least on the declaratory level,the nuclear weapon states.

Earlier, in 1994 and 1995, Russia and China had ex-pressed reservations about the CANWFZ concept. At the52nd session of the U.N. General Assembly, however,the five Central Asian states jointly submitted a draftresolution endorsing the initiative aimed at establishinga CANWFZ. Diplomats from the Central Asian stateswere initially uncertain how the five nuclear powerswould react to this resolution, especially since the pro-posed CANWFZ would border on two nuclear weaponstates, Russia and China. The United States, Russia,China, France, and Great Britain, however, endorsed theresolution after the Central Asian states agreed to ac-cept several amendments to its original text. Theamended resolution was then adopted by consensus onNovember 10,1997 by the First Main Committee of theGeneral Assembly, and later endorsed by the full Gen-eral Assembly on December 9,1997."

Following the adoption of the resolution by the FirstMain Committee, the United States delegation made astatement in which it affirmed its support in principlefor the establishment of a CANWFZ, but noted that "the

devil is in the details." The statement added that finalU.S. support would hinge on the detailed provisions ofthe treaty establishing the zone.12 This statement fore-shadowed the less than enthusiastic U.S. support for theestablishment of the zone in the coming months. SomeU.S. officials, focusing on the role of nuclear weaponsin U.S. security policy, feared that the CANWFZ mightserve as a precedent for the establishment of a NWFZin Central Europe, as proposed by Belarus, which theUnited States opposes. U.S. officials also worried thatthe CANWFZ might hamper U.S. options if its provi-sions, like those of the Treaties of Pelindaba andBangkok, restricted the transit of nuclear weapons acrossits territory. Such objections appeared to ignore geopo-litical reality, as contingencies in which the United Stateswould want to transport nuclear weapons across Cen-tral Asia are quite remote. Nevertheless, these views in-hibited the United States from actively supporting thezone in 1998, when the Almaty Declaration and the U.N.General Assembly resolution had created momentumthat could have led to the rapid conclusion of a CANWFZtreaty, had it received more vigorous support from theUnited States and other nuclear powers. However, itwould not be until the 1999 NPT PrepCom that theUnited States would make a definitive statement in sup-port of the CANWFZ.

Nevertheless, following the passage of the U.N. Gen-eral Assembly resolution, the Central Asian states maderapid progress during 1998 and 1999 toward establish-ing a CANWFZ. In early 1998, an expert group of Cen-tral Asian diplomats began work on the basic elementsof a draft treaty to establish the zone. As called for bythe U.N. General Assembly resolution, the U.N. Depart-ment for Disarmament Affairs has provided expert ad-vice to the group, and Jozef Goldblat, an arms controlexpert based in Geneva, Switzerland, was appointed asa special advisor to the expert group. The InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also provided ex-pert advice to the Central Asian states during the draft-ing of the treaty. At a meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstanin July 1998, Central Asian experts discussed the "basicprinciples" of the draft treaty with representatives of thefive nuclear weapon states.13 At subsequent meetings,held in New York, Geneva, Switzerland, and Sapporo,Japan, the expert group agreed on almost all of the textof the draft treaty, although several significant points ofdisagreement remain to be resolved. These points of dis-

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agreement are serious enough that they now threaten toblock the establishment of a CANWFZ.

MAJOR TERMS OF THE CURRENT DRAFTTREATY

Among the terms of the draft treaty that have beenagreed upon by the five Central Asian States are the fol-lowing:14

• Zone of Application: The draft treaty envisages theestablishment of a CANWFZ that would comprise theterritory of the five Central Asian states. Delineationof the zone is relatively straightforward, with theexception of the Caspian Sea, where there are out-standing territorial disputes involving two of the mem-bers of the proposed CANWFZ (Kazakhstan andTurkmenistan) and the other littoral states (Russia,Iran, and Azerbaijan). This difficulty was resolved atthe October 1999 meeting of the working group inSapporo, Japan, so that the zone does not include ter-ritorial waters. A clause in the draft treaty also spe-cifically notes that its terms do not prejudice the rightsof any of the Central Asian states with regard to dis-putes concerning the ownership or sovereignty of anylands or waters that may or may not be included withinthe zone. As currently drafted, then, the CANWFZtreaty would cover the land territory of the five Cen-tral Asian states and their internal waterways. Thetreaty allows for the zone to expand in the future. Ar-ticle 14 explicitly states that the treaty is open to"states having common borders" with the proposedzone, provided that the treaty is amended (requiringconsent of all parties to the treaty) to include the newstate. Some of the Central Asian delegations have saidthat they would like to see states such as Iran and Af-ghanistan join the zone in the future. As currentlyworded, the treaty would not allow Mongolia to join,since Mongolia does not have a common border withany of the Central Asian states.• Possession/Development of Nuclear Weapons:The draft treaty prohibits the parties from conductingresearch on, developing, manufacturing, stockpiling,or otherwise acquiring or having control of any nuclearweapon or nuclear explosive device anywhere. It alsopledges the parties not to seek or receive any assis-tance in the development of a nuclear weapon ornuclear explosive device, or to assist or encourageother states in doing so. The parties agree not to al-low the acquisition, use, storage, stationing, or pro-

duction of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive de-vices on their territory. The treaty reaffirms the com-mitments made in the Comprehensive Test BanTreaty, and pledges the parties not to carry out nucleartests or other nuclear explosions, or to assist others indoing so.• Radioactive Waste Disposal: The parties agree notto allow the disposal on their territory of radioactivewaste from other states.• Environmental Security: A specific article in thedraft treaty pledges the parties to assist one anotherin their efforts to clean up those areas that were con-taminated by activities related to the former Sovietnuclear weapons program. The desire to foster greaterinternational collaboration and assistance in copingwith this legacy clearly remains one of the majormotivations for the Central Asian states to establish aCANWFZ. The Central Asian states hope that the es-tablishment of a CANWFZ will not only foster re-gional collaboration to address the environmentallegacy of the Soviet nuclear program, but will alsoattract international financial assistance. These pro-visions may also spark concern, however, amongstates with active civilian or military nuclear pro-grams. States with nuclear weapons programs mayfeel that the treaty singles them out as damaging theenvironment. Russia, in particular, may feel that thisprovision of the treaty tacitly blames it for the envi-ronmental damage of the Soviet era.• IAEA Safeguards: The draft treaty requires all par-ties to conclude comprehensive safeguards agreementswith the IAEA within 18 months of its signature. Itexplicitly says that these agreements should be "inaccordance with the IAEA's strengthened safeguardssystem," meaning that the Central Asian States wouldbe required to sign additional protocols under the 93+2guidelines. To date, only Uzbekistan has signedand ratified an additional protocol.15 Tajikistan,Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan do not yet have safe-guards agreements in force with IAEA. Turkmenistanand Tajikistanhave not signed such agreements, whileKyrgyzstan signed one in 1998, but has not yet rati-fied it.16 The parties also pledge to provide physicalprotection measures to nuclear material and nuclearfacilities on its territory at least as effective as thosecalled for by the Convention on Physical Protectionof Nuclear Material and the recommendations andguidelines of the IAEA (as contained in INFCIRC/226). This provision will place new obligations on the

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Central Asian states, as the Convention on PhysicalProtection only requires safeguards on nuclear mate-rial in international transport, while the guidelinescontained in INFCIRC/226 are currently only recom-mendations, and are not legally binding.17

• Export Controls: The draft treaty requires thatnuclear material and specially designed and preparedequipment be exported only to non-nuclear weaponstates that have comprehensive safeguards agreementswith the IAEA under the strengthened safeguards sys-tem. At one point in the negotiations, the treaty wouldalso have required that nuclear exports to nuclearweapon states be permitted only if they were "in con-formity with applicable safeguards agreements withthe IAEA." However, some of the Central Asian statesexpressed concern that the nuclear weapon statesmight object to this language (even though similarlanguage is included in the treaties of Rarotonga andBangkok), and that it could interfere with their exportsof uranium to Russia. This clause has now been re-moved from the draft treaty. The current draft willrequire IAEA safeguards only on nuclear exports tonon-nuclear weapon states.• Treaty Implementation: During the negotiations,the Central Asian states debated whether or not tocreate a separate organization to administer theCANWFZ treaty (like the Agency for the Prohibitionof Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Carib-bean, for example). Early drafts of the treaty providedfor such an organization, but it was subsequently de-cided to remove that language. The current draft callssimply for the parties to meet once a year on a rotat-ing basis to discuss treaty implementation. Extraor-dinary meetings can also be called at the request ofany party in order to discuss implementation or com-pliance issues.

DISPUTED PROVISIONS

Even though the Central Asian states have reachedagreement on almost all of the draft treaty, the outstand-ing issues that divide them may well prevent the estab-lishment of a CANWFZ. The differences on these issueshave been fuelled by continuing regional rivalry amongthe five Central Asian states. While Kazakhstan has re-tained fairly close ties to Russia, including on securityissues, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have taken a muchmore independent stance, for example. The two princi-pal divisive issues are how the treaty will treat the pos-

sible transit of nuclear weapons through the CANWFZ,and the relationship of the CANWFZ to previous inter-national agreements to which the Central Asian statesare parties.

Both of these issues are apparently linked to Russianconcerns about retaining future freedom of action inthe Central Asian region, including the possibility ofdeploying nuclear weapons. In 1997 and 1998, theseRussian concerns were muted, and Russian diplomatseven voiced support for the initiative to establish aCANWFZ.18 To some extent, this publicly expressedsupport may have reflected an underlying belief in Mos-cow that the Central Asian states would not succeed innegotiating a CANWFZ treaty.19 This stance changedafter April 1999, when the North Atlantic Treaty Orga-nization bombing campaign in Kosovo prompted Rus-sia to place enhanced emphasis on the role of nuclearweapons in its national security strategy.20 At about thistime, Kazakhstan stiffened its position in the negotia-tions on the two disputed issues.

With respect to transit, Kazakhstan has argued that thetreaty should allow each party to independently resolveissues related to transit of nuclear weapons through itsterritory by air, land, or water.21 Other states, particu-larly Turkmenistan and to a lesser extent Uzbekistan,have argued for more restrictive language. The currentlanguage in the draft treaty reflects this Kazakhstaniview, and could be interpreted as allowing transit ofnuclear weapons across the zone. However, this languageis ambiguous, because it states that decisions about tran-sit should not be prejudicial to the purposes and objec-tives of the zone, which could be interpreted asprohibiting transit of nuclear weapons. Perhaps becauseof this ambiguity, which allows them to paper over theirdifferences on this issue, this draft language has nowbeen accepted by four of the Central Asian states, butnot by Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan does not accept lan-guage that would allow transit, and insists that the treatyinclude an explicit ban on transit of nuclear weaponsthrough the zone. In addition, the current language doesnot define "transit," so that nuclear weapons might theo-retically be "in transit" for an extended period of timewithout clearly violating the terms of the treaty. As aresult, the current language in the draft treaty could beinterpreted as permittingat least the temporary redeploy-ment of Russian nuclear weapons in Kazakhstan (or anyof the other CANWFZ signatories, for that matter),

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should the countries involved agree that such a deploy-ment is necessary.

The relationship of the CANWFZ to previously con-cluded treaties remains an even larger point of disagree-ment among the Central Asian states. Although notpublicly acknowledged, the reason for this disagreementis the 1992 Tashkent Collective Security Treaty, to whichKazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are currentlysignatories.22 Russia interpretsthis treaty as allowingthedeployment of Russian nuclear weapons on the territoryof the other signatories if they reach a joint decision thatit is necessary.23 As a result, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,and Tajikistan have said that they want the CANWFZtreaty to explicitly state that its provisions do not affectpreviously concluded treaties. Uzbekistan andTurkmenistan, which are not parties to the TashkentTreaty, by contrast, are not willing to accept this lan-guage, resulting in a deadlock on this issue.

These two issues were not resolved at the most recentmeeting of the Central Asian experts group negotiatingthe treaty, held in Sapporo, Japan in April 2000. Aprevious meeting in October 1999 had also discussedthese issues without making substantial progress.Turkmenistan declined to send a delegation to the April2000 meeting, arguing that it was not worthwhile to at-tend the meeting unless significant progress was madeon the transit and other agreement issues prior to themeeting. Despite the lack of progress at this session, noneof the states involved has given up, and discussions be-tween the Central Asian states continue, in particular atthe United Nations in New York. The five states againco-sponsored a resolution supporting the establishmentof a CANWFZ at the 55th session of the U.N. GeneralAssembly in the fall of 2000. This resolution was adoptedby the General Assembly without a vote on November20, 2000.24

POSSIBLE NEXT STEPS

Under current conditions, prospects for the conclusionof an effective CANWFZ treaty in the near future arenot promising. Although discussions continue, the tran-sit and other agreements issues are effectively dead-locked, with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan onone side, and Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan on the other.Recent developments in Russia and in Central Asia havenot improved the prospects for a CANWFZ. On the onehand, the recent modification of Russian nuclear doc-

trine at the August 11,2000 meeting of the Russian Na-tional Security Council, which appeared to de-empha-size the role of strategic nuclear weapons in Russiansecurity policy, might reduce possible Russian objectionsto the CANWFZ.25 On the other hand, it is not obviousthat these changes will affect the increased importanceattached by Russia to tactical nuclear weapons. Sincetactical nuclear weapons are the nuclear weapons sys-tems most likely to be considered useful in Central Asiaby the Russian military, Russia remains unlikely tochange its stance on the disputed issues in the near fu-ture. This Russian attitude appears to be driving theKazakhstani, Kyrgyzstani, and Tajikistani positions inthe CANWFZ negotiations.

The increase in activity by Islamic insurgents inUzbekistan during 2000, which has prompted Tashkentto request Russian assistance, may well lead Uzbekistanto move closer to Russia on security policy issues. Thiscould lead to a softening of the Uzbekistani stance onsome of the disputed issues in the draft CANWFZ treaty.However, if Uzbekistan softened its position, any treatythat emerged would probably be weaker in its terms thanthe other recent NWFZ treaties, which could be viewedas a step backward from the point of view of global de-nuclearization (although it must be admitted that such atreaty would reflect the unique local circumstances inCentral Asia). Given that Turkmenistan shows no signsof moving closer to Russia on security issues, however,it seems unlikely that the Turkmenistani position on thedisputed issues in the CANWFZ treaty will soften anytime soon. In that case, even a change in the Uzbekistaniposition will not necessarily produce a CANWFZ treaty.

It is also possible that the upsurge in insurgent activ-ity in the region, which also affects Kyrgyzstan andTaj ikistan, may push the CANWFZ negotiations into thebackground. As they face more urgent security threats,the Central Asian states may simply not have the timeand resources to resolve the outstanding issues regard-ing the CANWFZ. In late 2000, Central Asian diplomatsindicated that the establishment of a CANWFZ had in-deed become "less important" as a result of concern overinsurgent activity.26 In recent years, the Central Asianstates have often blamed one another for failing to stopcross-border incursions by insurgents. If this patterncontinues, it could worsen relations among the CentralAsian countries and diminish the prospects for success-ful conclusion of the CANWFZ treaty.

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Overall, then, the most likely outcomes in the nearterm are either continued deadlock, or (less likely) afairly weak CANWFZ treaty with permissive terms withregard to transit and other agreements. Such terms wouldstrip the treaty of much of its significance as a disarma-ment measure. From the point of view of the global non-proliferation regime, temporary deadlock may be apreferred outcome to rapid conclusion of a weak drafttreaty. Eventually, it may prove possible to influence theunderlying political conditions that are hampering theconclusion of an effective treaty that would build uponthe precedents set by the already existing NWFZs.

On the positive side, the development to date of theCANWFZ process shows that non-governmental orga-nizations can play an important role. The Center for Non-proliferation Studies (CNS) of the Monterey Institute ofInternational Studies, for example, provided advice tothe Central Asian states at various points in the negoti-ating process. This role has now largely been assumedby the United Nations and the IAEA, which are provid-ing substantial technical assistance, with generous finan-cial support from the government of Japan.

Even if a CANWFZ is not established soon, NGOsinside and outside the region may help prepare theground for its emergence in the future. One of the majorobstacles to the establishment of a CANWFZ is the in-creasing emphasis placed on nuclear weapons in Rus-sian national security policy in the past few years.Nuclear weapons continue to occupy a central place inthe national security policies of all the nuclear weaponsstates. NGOs can work to convince the governments ofthe nuclear states and those who elect them, that the timeis ripe to drastically reduce the role of nuclear weaponsin national security policy and take concrete steps tofurther limit nuclear weapons deployments and stock-piles. If progress can be made on this issue by Westerngovernments, it may lay the ground for parallel progressin Russia. This, in turn, would alter the security envi-ronment in Central Asia and improve the chances for apositive resolution of the outstanding disputes blockingthe finalization of the CANWFZ treaty. Barring unfore-seen developments, however, this is task that will takesome time. NGOs can also continue to emphasize thatthe establishment of the zone might bring more interna-tional attention and assistance to bear on the former So-viet nuclear legacy in Central Asia. The "environmentalangle" could yet bring the Central Asian states togetherand lead them to finalize a CANWFZ treaty.

CONCLUSION

The establishment of additional NWFZs has been oneof the most positive disarmament steps in the last de-cade. Each of the successive NWFZ treaties has not onlyexpanded the part of the planet that is free of nuclearweapons, but has also included stricter limits on nuclearweapons-relatedactivities. While the CANWFZ seemedto be the next logical step along this path only a shorttime ago, its prospects have now considerably dimmed.A window of opportunity that was open in 1997 and 1998now appears to have closed. Even if a treaty is finalizedin the near future, its terms may be weaker, instead ofstronger than those of the previous NWFZ treaties. Per-haps this should not be a surprise, given the geopoliticalrealities of Central Asia. But even if the CANWFZ isnot established soon, the states of the region and non-proliferation advocates in the international communitywill continue to take steps to establish the foundationfor its emergence in the future.

1 The author thanks Emily Ewell Daughtry, Jozef Goldblat, James Clay Moltz,William Potter, and the participants of the International Seminar, NuclearWeapon-Free Zones: Crucial Steps Towards a Nuclear-Free World, Uppsala,Sweden, September 1-4, 2000 for comments on earlier versions of this ar-ticle. All errors and omissions remain the sole responsibility of the author.2 For a discussion of the development of the NWFZ concept and the nego-tiations that produced the existing NWFZ treaties, see Jozef Goldblat,"Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones: A History and Assessment," Nonprolifera-tion Review (Spring-Summer 1997), pp. 18-31, and Jan Prawitz, "ExistingNWFZs: History and Principles," Paper Presented at the International Semi-nar Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones: Crucial Steps Towards A Nuclear-FreeWorld, Uppsala, Sweden, September 1-4, 2000.3 For more information on the Mongolian initiative, see Tariq Rauf,"Mongolia's International Security and Nuclear-Weapon-Free Status,"CANCAPS Bulletin/Bulletin de CONCSAP No. 27 (November 2000), <http://www.iir.ubc.ca/cancaps/cbul27.html#mongolia>.4 For other discussions of the origins of the CANWFZ concept and its devel-opment, see Alexander Sergounin, "Denuclearizing Central Asia," PacificaReview 11 (October 1999), pp. 273-291; Burkhard Conrad, "Regional(Non)proliferation: The Case of Central Asia," available at the web site ofthe NGO Committee on Disarmament, <http://www.igc.org/disarm/bccentan.html>; Guzel Taipova and Vladimir Chumak, "Vozmozhno lisozdaniya bezyademoy zony v Tsetntralnoy Azii?" Yadernyy kontrol No.20-21 (August-September 1996), pp. 26-30; the essays in Problemasozdaniyav Tsentralnoy Azii zony, svobodnoy ot yadernogo oruzhiya (Almaty,Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan Association of Nonproliferation Researchers, 1998);and Jozef Goldblat, "Central Asia: A Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in StatuNascendi," Pacifica Review 11 (October 1999), pp. 325-328.5 "Foreign Ministry Protests PRC Nuclear Test," Slovo Kyrgyzstana(Bishkek), October 21, 1994, p. 1, in FBIS-SOV-94-212; and "Foreign Min-ister on International Relations," Interfax, November 28, 1994, in FBIS-

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SOV-94-229.61995 Review and Extension Conference of Parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, "Report of Main Committee II," NPT/CONF.1995/MC.II/1.5, May 5, 1995, in International Atomic EnergyAgency, INFCIRC/474.7 "Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia: Draft Resolution on the Establishment of aNuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Central Asian Region," United NationsGeneral Assembly, 51st Session, Draft Resolution A/C.1/51/L.29, October29, 1996.8 "Text of Almaty Declaration on Aral Sea Pollution," Narodnoye slovo(Tashkent), March 4, 1997, in FBIS Document FTS19970530002474.9 A recent summary of the internationally recognized criteria for the estab-lishment of a NWFZ is "Establishment of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones onthe Basis of Arrangements Freely Arrived at Among the States of the Re-gion Concerned," Report of the Disarmament Commission, Annex I, UnitedNations General Assembly, 54th Session, Supplement No. 42, A/54/42.10 "Central Asian Ministers Support Nuclear-Free Zone Proposal," Interfax,September 15, 1997; in FBIS Document FTS199970915001229.11 "Establishment of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia," UnitedNations General Assembly, 51st Session, Resolution 52/38 S, December 7,1997.12 "Explanation of Vote (EOV) for L. 44, Establishment of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia," United Nations General Assembly, 52nd Ses-sion, First Main Committee Proceedings, 10 November 1997, A/C.l/52/PV.18.13 "Central Asian Foreign Ministers Meet on Nuclear-Free Zone," Interfax,July 9, 1998, in FBIS Document FTS19980709000486.14 Unless otherwise noted, the details of the draft treaty discussed belowcome from discussions with anonymous Central Asian government offi-cials. It should also be noted that none of the terms of the draft treaty dis-cussed below can be regarded as definitively agreed until the entire text ofthe treaty has been finalized. Any of the states involved could change itsmind regarding previously agreed language until the time when the treaty issigned.15 "Strengthened Safeguards System: Status of Additional Protocols," De-cember 8, 2000, <http://www.iaea.or.at/wordatom/Prgrammes/Safeguards/sg_protocol.shtml>.16 "Situation on 31 December 1999 with Respect to the Conclusion of Safe-guards Agreements Between the Agency and Non-Nuclear Weapon Statesin Connection with NPT," 1999 IAEA Annual Report (Vienna: InternationalAtomic Energy Agency, 2000), Table A14, <http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/Safeguards/.>17 George Bunn, "Raising International Standards for Protecting NuclearMaterials from Theft and Sabotage," Nonproliferation Review 7 (Summer2000), pp. 146-156.18 See for example, "Moscow Welcomes Karimov's Initiative on NuclearWeapons," Interfax, September 16, 1997, in FBIS DocumentFTS19970916000227; "Statement by Ambassador G. V. Berdennikov, Headof the Delegation of the Russian Federation, to the preparatory Committeefor the 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," Geneva, Switzerland, April 27, 1998;"Central Asian Foreign Ministers Meet on Nuclear-Free Zone," Interfax,July 9, 1998, in FBIS Document FTS19980709000486.19 For a discussion of the development of the Russian position on theCANWFZ in 1997 and 1998, see Ivan Safranchuk, "Rossiyskaya pozitsiyapo voprosu sozdaniya v Tsentralnoy Azii zony, svobodnoy ot yadernogooruzhiya," in Problema sozdaniya v Tsentralnoy Azii zony, svobodnoy otyadernogo oruzhiya (Almaty, Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan Association of Non-proliferation Researchers, 1998), pp. 24-40.20 For a discussion of this issue, see Nikolai Sokov, "Russia 's Nuclear Doc-trine: The End Of The Period Of Transition?," paper presented at Presenta-tion at a U.N. Symposium on Nuclear Doctrines, N e w York, October 18,1999.21 This language is more permissive than that in the IastNWFZ treaty signed,the Treaty of Pelindaba, which established the African NWFZ. Article Oneof the that treaty effectively prohibits land transport of nuclear weapons, bydefining "stationing" of nuclear weapons to include "transport on land or

inland waters." See Tariq Rauf, Mary Beth Nikitin, and Jenni Rissanen,Inventory of International Nonproliferation Organizations and Regimes,2000 Edition (Monterey, CA: Monterey Institute of International Studies,2000), p. 169.22 Uzbekistan was an original signatory of the 1992 Tashkent Treaty, whichentered into force in 1994, but declined to renew its membership in April1999, when the initial five-year term of the treaty expired. See YekaterinaTesemnikova, "Tashkent's Official Renunciation," Nezavisimaya gazeta(electronic edition), February 25, 2000, in FBIS DocumentFTS 19990226001038; and Yuriy Chubchenko, "Russia has Fewer and FewerSupporters: The CIS Collective Security Treaty No Longer Works,"Kommersant, April 21, 1999, p. 2, in FBIS Document FTS19990421001307.Turkmenistan never signed the treaty.23 CIS Collective Security Treaty, Rossiyskaya gazeta, May 23, 1992. Ar-ticle 4 of the treaty states that signatories will render each other "all neces-sary assistance, including military assistance," in response to aggression. Itis this article that Russian officials have interpreted as allowing transit anddeployment of nuclear weapons.24 United Nations General Assembly, 55th Session, A/RES/55/33W, "Es-tablishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia," November 20,2000.25 See Nikolai Sokov, "The Fate of Russian Nuclear Weapons: An Anticli-max on 11 August," Center for Nonproliferation Studies Web Site, <http://www.cns.miis.edu>.26 Uzbekistani diplomat (name witheld by request), interview by CNS staff,Tashkent, Uzbekistan, November 2000.

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