Stanislav Ivanov, Leading Researcher Center for International Security, IMEMO RAS, Candidate of Historical Sciences

Nuclear safety is one of the priorities on the agenda of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. There are several reasons for this circumstance. First, four of the eight SCO member states (Russia, China, India, Pakistan) possess nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to targets. Having the status of an observer state and undergoing the procedure of full membership in the SCO, Iran belongs to the so-called threshold countries that can create nuclear weapons in a relatively short period of time.

The SCO member countries, observers and candidates for membership in the SCO already have or are designing civilian nuclear facilities (research reactors, nuclear power plants), which can pose a potential hazard in the event of natural disasters, man-made disasters or terrorist attacks. The lessons of Chernobyl, Fukushima, the seizure of radioactive materials by Islamists in Iraq – all this forces us to take additional security measures at such civilian facilities of increased danger.

This also takes into account the explosive situation in a number of countries on the borders of the SCO. For example, the DPRK’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the country’s continued testing of nuclear missile weapons do not rule out their use in the event of an armed conflict between Pyongyang and Seoul or Tokyo. The United States and Israel continue to threaten to carry out missile and bomb strikes against Iran’s strategically important facilities if Tehran continues its nuclear program. Recently, Ukrainian nationalists have been shelling with heavy weapons the largest in Europe – the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

According to the authoritative international reference publication SIPRI, the total number of deployed nuclear weapons in the world by 2021 has reached 3825. Moreover, about 2000 of them are on high alert. If between the two leading nuclear powers (the United States and the Russian Federation) an approximate parity in this area is achieved and there is a Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms – START-3, then China, India and Pakistan are not yet bound by any such obligations and continue to develop this type of weapon of mass destruction. The leader in the regional nuclear-missile race in Asia, of course, is China, but India and Pakistan follow it  in his wake.

The topic of China’s nuclear potential remains closed, and international experts can only assume the number of nuclear charges in this country: from 300 to 400. Vasily Kashin, a senior researcher at the Higher School of Economics, noted: “During the current decade, China will be inferior to Russia in terms of the number of warheads. But if we talk about the long term, then, of course, he has more resources in order to increase their number. Perhaps China will be in a different league from Britain and France and make a leap towards a thousand warheads. As for the prospect of China joining the nuclear arms reduction talks, his position is simple and understandable. Beijing will never agree to be assigned a lower threshold for nuclear weapons than Russia, the United States, or any other state.” The Chinese leadership emphasizes that it will be able to sit down at the negotiating table with the US and Russia on the issues of freezing or reducing nuclear weapons only after reaching their levels of nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan, in turn, are trying to prevent each other’s nuclear superiority as relations between these regional powers remain tense, mainly over disputed territory in Kashmir. According to experts, their nuclear arsenals reach 150 or more warheads, and countries also have triads of means to deliver them to targets. On the positive side, Delhi and Islamabad did sign a number of agreements in the field of confidence building measures, which testifies to their “negotiability”.

The SCO member countries initially supported the conclusion of a multilateral international treaty on security guarantees for countries that do not have such weapons, and call on the nuclear powers to refuse to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of other countries.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan signed the Treaty on a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia, which entered into force on March 21, 2009. The signatory states have committed themselves to renounce research, development, storage, production, stockpiling or acquisition, control over any nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device. A separate part of the treaty is a protocol on negative assurances, open for signing by the states of the “nuclear five” – ​​Great Britain, China, Russia, the United States and France, which obliges the nuclear state “not to use nuclear weapons or threaten to use them against the participating states of the region.” The Protocol on Negative Safeguards was signed by the countries of the “nuclear five” on May 6, 2014 in New York after many years of consultations. Kyrgyzstan is designated as the depositary country of the treaty, in October 2014 this treaty was ratified by France, and in January 2015 by the United Kingdom.

This is the first nuclear-free zone created in the Northern Hemisphere in a region that borders two nuclear powers – Russia and China. Also, the Treaty became the first multilateral agreement in the field of nuclear safety, which covers all five countries of Central Asia. The SCO countries believe that the soonest entry into force of the protocol on security guarantees to the Treaty on a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia for all signatory countries “will make a significant contribution to ensuring regional security and strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime”.

This treaty obliges the countries of Central Asia to meet international requirements regarding the safety of their nuclear facilities, which also serves anti-terrorist purposes and complies with the statutory goals and objectives of the SCO. The creation of the CANWFZ can be considered a necessary and important step towards promoting the global non-proliferation regime, strengthening regional security and solving environmental problems.

The other day, Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi went further and took the initiative to develop a phased plan for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons by the UN centenary in 2045. Kazakhstan has every right to such initiatives, since after the collapse of the USSR, it voluntarily gave up more than a thousand nuclear warheads, over a hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles and forty heavy bombers carrying nuclear weapons. In addition, Kazakhstan got rid of several tons of nuclear materials, including weapons-grade plutonium. Now the country is using its uranium mines and production facilities to produce raw materials for nuclear power plants and research reactors, and plans to build its own nuclear power plant by 2035.

Compliance with international regimes for the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has become one of the fundamental criteria for admitting new states to the SCO. In connection with the forthcoming accession to the SCO as a full member of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the issue of the soonest full restoration of the so-called “nuclear deal” with Iran (JCPOA), which was previously concluded by six interested states and Iran and from which in May In 2018, the United States unilaterally withdrew. In fact, Washington thwarted the long-term efforts of other signatories of the JCPOA (Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Germany, Iran) and provoked Tehran to continue R&D in the nuclear field.