President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov made this proposal at the 48^th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 28, 1993. Subsequently, at the 61^st and 63^rd sessions the overwhelming majority of UN member states adopted a resolution “Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone”, and on March 21, 2009 the treaty came into force.

This document became the first multilateral agreement of security, which covers all five Central Asian states. On this occasion a UN statement noted that this is the first nuclear-free zone, established in the region, where nuclear weapons had existed. “This treaty is the first obligation of all participants to conclude an additional protocol with IAEA on safeguards and to implement fully the obligations under the treaty for the Comprehensive Ban of Nuclear Test within 18 months after its entry into force.”

As the member of the Committee on Defense and Security Affairs of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis Igor Korenev noted, “the work on the treaty draft was conducted in the countries of Central Asia for nine years. An important factor in establishing of a nuclear-free zone in Central Asia is that the initiative of the President of Uzbekistan has developed with active assistance and under the auspices of the United Nations.

“The Treaty became part of the efforts being made by the international community to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination, as well as general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Central Asia should not just be a nuclear-free zone, but also free of all other weapons of mass destruction. The understanding of this in Uzbekistan originally came not only from the need to avert the threat of its possible use in military conflicts, but also because of fears that nuclear weapon could fall into the hands of international terrorists.”

Today the world community perceives the result of the initiative as a real step toward nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.