With UN backing, 5 Central Asian countries agree to nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty

With the backing of the United Nations, five Central Asian countries have successfully concluded negotiations on a treaty that would make the region a nuclear-weapon-free zone, a UN spokesman announced today in New York.

After five years of intensive, UN-supported work, experts from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan agreed to the text of the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, spokesman Fred Eckhard said. The talks took place from Wednesday through today in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

“[The experts] agreed that the signing of the treaty should take place as soon as possible,” the spokesman said.