The Defense Department
announced today the signing of a Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR)
agreement with the Republic of Kazakstan that would permanently close
and seal the former Soviet Union's Degelen Mountain nuclear test tunnel
complex at the Semipalatinsk site. It is the largest such complex in
the world.
The agreement,
one in a series of agreements on cooperative threat reduction with
four successor states of the Soviet Union (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine,
and Kazakstan), is an important step in strengthening the recently renewed
1968 Nonproliferation Treaty to which Kazakstan has also acceded. It
also serves to reinforce long-standing U.S. efforts to promote acceptance
of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
The former Soviet
Union conducted underground nuclear tests at the Degelen Mountain Complex
from 1961 to 1989. The U.S.-Kazakstan cooperative project will demilitarize
the complex using environmentally sound methods to close and seal permanently
its tunnels. By foreclosing future use of the complex, this project
will have a positive impact on our broader efforts to enhance U.S. national
security as well as international security in the post-Cold War era.
As part of a Congressionally
funded program for nuclear infrastructure elimination, the project results
from discussions starting in late 1994 between Kazakstan's Ministry
of Science and New Technologies and the Department of Defense. The Defense
Nuclear Agency will execute the project for the Department of Defense,
in cooperation with the National Nuclear Center of Kazakstan.
The project will
be implemented in two phases: the first, beginning this month, will
assess the geological and radiological status of each tunnel and recommend
appropriate sealing methods and schedules. The second will be the actual
closures, targeted for completion by Fiscal Year 1999. The goal is to
seal a minimum of 60 tunnels a year. So far, six million dollars in
Fiscal Year 1995 CTR funding has been designated to cover the assessment
phase and initial tunnel closures.
The Department
of Defense is pleased to be engaged in this highly significant cooperative
undertaking with the newly independent Republic of Kazakstan, and sees
it as a symbol of both countries' commitment to leadership in promoting
global nonproliferation policies.
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