SEMIPALATINSK NUCLEAR TEST SITE, Kazakhstan — Standing at the former Soviet nuclear test site, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would press nuclear powers at a Washington summit next week to scrap all their atomic weapons.
The UN chief said there was good reason to believe that the long-standing UN goal would eventually be realized amid optimism over a new U.S.-Russian strategic arms pact and a nuclear policy review by Washington, which he praised.
Ban, on a Central Asian tour, flew by helicopter to the site in Kazakhstan where the former Soviet Union carried out nearly 500 atmospheric and underground nuclear test explosions between 1949 and 1989.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev closed the site, now called "Ground Zero," in 1991 as the Soviet Union broke up into independent states.
He got rid of more than 100 nuclear warheads installed in Kazakhstan, and an international treaty making Central Asia a nuclear weapons-free zone was later signed at the site.
"Now we have a good reason to believe that the promise of Semipalatinsk — the abolition of nuclear weapons — will become reality," Ban said Tuesday, standing on a dais surrounded by a vast grassland steppe still dotted with patches of winter snow.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled a nuclear posture review under which the United States will not develop new atomic weapons or use existing ones against non-nuclear states in good standing with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"I cannot think of a more fitting — even poignant — place to hear this news," Ban said, describing his helicopter ride over the site as a "very sobering experience."
"At next week's nuclear security summit … I will urge the leaders of the Russian Federation and the United States, and other nuclear states leaders, to abandon all nuclear weapons," he said.
"Here today in Semipalatinsk, I call on all nuclear weapons states to follow suit of Kazakhstan."
Crumbling concrete towers and anti-blast walls were the only visible remains of the Semipalatinsk test site as Ban addressed a small gathering of UN and Kazakh officials, including Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev.
Kazakh officials say about 1.5 million people suffered physical or psychological damage as a result of the nuclear tests that were carried out. The United Nations is helping to clean up the contamination of the soil, rivers and lakes.