UN General Assembly
2009

the situation in Afghanistan — a regional neighbour of the OSCE — one of the organization’s greatest priorities. The prospect of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, along with the risk of their acquisition and use by terrorist organizations, remains one of the most serious threats to mankind. As a country that has experienced the horrors of nuclear tests, shut down the world’s second-largest nuclear testing site, at Semipalatinsk, and voluntarily renounced the world’s fourth-largest nuclear and missile arsenal, Kazakhstan has an absolute moral right to call for more decisive action in the area of disarmament and for the radical strengthening of the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction regime. In particular, Kazakhstan deems it important to ensure the soonest possible entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. We welcome the efforts of United States President Barack Obama to give new impetus to the non-proliferation process and to eliminate the nuclear threat. Kazakhstan is in favour of strengthening and ensuring the universality of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). We must