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Updated January 2009
Nuclear Overview
When the USSR collapsed in December 1991, Kazakhstan inherited the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world after the Russian Federation, the United States and Ukraine — 104 SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 40 Tu-95 strategic bombers with air-launched cruise missiles — around 1,410 nuclear warheads in all. In addition, Kazakhstan was home to the Semipalatinsk nuclear weapons test site. Upon declaring independence, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev made the decision to renounce nuclear weapons. Kazakhstan transferred all of its nuclear warheads to Russia by April 1995 and destroyed the nuclear testing infrastructure at Semipalatinsk by July 2000.
Approximately 600 kg of weapons-grade HEU was removed to the United States from the Ulba Metallurgy Plant in 1994 under a joint U.S.-Kazakhstani operation known as Project Sapphire. In a subsequent operation that began in 2001, 2,900 kg of up to 26% enriched nuclear fuel was transferred from the Mangyshlak Atomic Energy Combine in Aktau to Ulba to be blended down to non-weapons usable forms of uranium for use in commercial and scientific activities.
However, approximately 10,590-10,940 kilograms (of which at least 20 kg in fresh fuel, and the remainder in spent fuel) of highly enriched uranium (HEU) remain in Kazakhstan. The Kazakhstani stockpile of weapons-grade material includes three metric tons of plutonium contained in 300 tons of spent fuel at a shutdown BN-350 breeder reactor in Aktau and small amounts of HEU at two civilian nuclear institutes with operational research reactors. Downblending of fresh HEU fuel as well as efforts to convert the VVR-K reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics are ongoing under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative program. Plans to transfer the plutonium-containing spent fuel from Aktau to Semipalatinsk for storage have stalled for several years.
Kazakhstan currently possesses approximately 15-30% of the world's uranium reserves and has expressed intent to become the world's largest producer of uranium under its "number one in the world" program. Moscow has stated its interest in integrating Soviet-era nuclear infrastructure that once linked the uranium and nuclear fuel facilities in Russia and Central Asia in order to meet Russian and global demand. In October 2006, Kazakhstan agreed to participate in the creation of an international uranium enrichment center in Russia.
Kazakhstan is a party to START-I, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The foreign ministers of the five Central Asian States--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--signed a treaty establishing a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ) on 8 September 2006. On 11 December 2008, Kazakhstan completed the ratification of CANWFZ Treaty. Kazakhstan signed the Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency in February 2004. On 19 February 2007, Kazakhstani President Nazarbayev signed a law approving the nation's Additional Protocol. Kazakhstan ratified the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism on 14 May 2008. The country is also an active partner nation in the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.
This material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and
does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently
verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2009 by MIIS.
