First International Day against Nuclear Tests

(August 28, 2010) The first International Day against Nuclear Tests is being observed on Sunday, August 29, with the United Nations chief optimistic that “there is real momentum behind this great cause.” The annual day is in commemoration of the first nuclear device detonated on Aug. 29, 1949 by the Soviet Union at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, four years after the explosion of the first nuclear bomb by the United States. It marked the start of the nuclear arms race between the world’s two super powers. Kazakhstan shut down the test site on Aug. 29, 1991, and last year, the UN General Assembly unanimously endorsed Kazakhstan’s proposal to declare Aug. 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests. “The fact that the proposal won unanimous support reflects the deep concern of the international community about the dangers posed by such tests,” said UN Secy.-Gen, Ban Ki Moon in a message for this first International Day against Nuclear Tests. He said that 456 nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk since the first one in 1949 during the cold war, have devastated the landscape and left enduring effects on the local population. Ban commended Kazhkstan for its initiative saying, “It tells us that a world free of nuclear weapons is achievable. There is real momentum behind this great cause.” Both Ban and Tibor Toth, head of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization renewed their calls for the end to nuclear testing, informally and ultimately through the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which has yet to be approved by a select group of 44 states before entering into force. Ban has called for a timeline of achieving this goal by 2012.