From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Aug 30 2001 - 10:38:11 EDT
Kazakh president launches his new book
At the launch of his new book on 28 August entitled "The Epicentre of
Peace", Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev explained why he had chosen
this title and what the main ideas of the book were. He also said the book
was aimed at making it clear to people that mankind had to fight to get
states to give up their nuclear weapons.The following are excerpts from a
report broadcast on Kazakh state TV first channel the same day:
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev adopted a sufficiently resolute
decision ten years ago. Our country voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons
once and forever. Nursultan Nazarbayev's new book dedicated to issues of
nuclear tests is entitled "The Epicentre of Peace". The launch of the book
was held in Almaty. [passage omitted: nuclear tests used to be held almost
on half of the country's territory ten years ago; 456 nuclear tests were
held in the Semipalatinsk range alone; the nuclear test range was closed
after the collapse of the Soviet Union]
[Nazarbayev] There is a book before you that I have been thinking about over
the last years, I would say the last ten years. I decided to call it "The
Epicentre of Peace" because it was from our country, from the same place
which once was the epicentre of nuclear threats, that a new peace process,
the voluntary and conscious liberation of humanity from the most dangerous
threat, started. The book considers three conceptual, mutually
complementary and problematic blocs:
The first. This is the fight of the Kazakh nation and the republic's
leadership for liberation from the nuclear complex and its infrastructure.
The second is the analysis of our organizational, political and legal
activities aimed at demilitarizing the state's territory and threats
accompanying this process.
And the third is Kazakhstan's role and place in the process of the formation
of a new system of international security and drawing up a new strategy of
a peace settlement based on collective efforts as part of the doctrine of
confidence-building proclaimed.
The book is also the fruit of thoughts on the fate of our civilization in
which not only the results of enormous scientific progress discovered
positive prospects that mankind had not seen before, but in which, for the
first time, the history of mankind did face a real danger of
self-destruction.
[passage omitted: some scholars expressed their opinions]
[Nazarbayev] I think that I am making a modest contribution to the course of
peace in order to make it clear to people, to mankind that it is impossible
to expect that states will begin to reduce their nuclear arsenal on their
own. Mankind should fight for this. This is the basic idea [of the book].
[passage omitted: the initiative began ten years ago]
Video shows Nazarbayev addressing the launch and his book.
Source: Kazakh Television first channel, Astana, in Russian 1430 gmt 28 Aug
01
BBC Mon CAU 290801/** jf/mi
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