PNND will hold its 2015 Assembly from Oct 14-17 in conjunction with the Prague Agenda Conference.
Karipbek Kuyukov, a second generation victim of Soviet nuclear tests, will be a keynote speaker.
‘I have no arms, but I join you in waving goodbye to nuclear weapons’
Karipbek Kuyukov, Honorary Ambassador of the ATOM Project
Karipbek Kuyukov, was born without arms - a second generation victim of Soviet nuclear testing in North East Kazakhstan.
Nearly 2 million people in Kazakhstan have severe health problems or have died from the effects of radiation from 470 nuclear tests. But few people outside Kazakhstan know about it.
Karipbek is compelled to tell the story by his art (he paints with his mouth and feet) and by his words. He wants to ensure that the tragedies of N.E. Kazakhstan – and of other nuclear test regions around the world – will not be repeated. His story is a call for the abolition of these inhumane weapons.
Karipbek will be a keynote speaker at the 2015 PNND Assembly, which will be held in Prague in conjunction with the Prague Agenda Conference from Oct 14-17.
The Prague Agenda conferences have been held every year since President Obama’s historic Prague speech putting forward the vision and commitment to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world. However, six years on and the nuclear armed States have yet to commence the negotiations to achieve this goal.
Karipbek is not a politician. He cannot negotiate agreements between countries to abolish nuclear weapons – leaders and governments have to do that. But he can inspire.
Indeed, it was stories like those of Karipbek that inspired Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarabayev to close down the Soviet nuclear test site in Semipalatinsk in 1991, and to organize the dismantling and destruction of all 1500 nuclear weapons that were deployed on Kazakhstan territory when the Soviet Union collapsed.
President Nazarbayev has launched additional nuclear disarmament initiatives including the successful negotiations to establish a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, a proposal to establish and International Day Against Nuclear Tests which was agreed unanimously by the UN General Assembly, and the ATOM Project, which was launched at the 2012 PNND Assembly in Astana with Karipbek Kuyukov appointed as the Honorary Ambassador.
The 2015 PNND Assembly will include other inspiring speakers from the United Nations, key governments, parliaments and civil society, coming from nuclear weapon States and from non-nuclear States.
It will also include the Czech premiere screening of ‘The Man Who Saved the World’, an award-winning docu-drama about an incident in 1983 when a nuclear exchange almost happened by faults in the Soviet nuclear command and control system.
The movie recreates those moments 32 years ago. It then follows Stanislav Petrov – the man who prevented a nuclear disaster – as he travels to the United States in 2013 and warns that current nuclear policies and increasing tensions make a nuclear disaster today or tomorrow very likely.
The PNND Assembly and Prague Agenda Conference will be hosted by the Czech Foreign Ministry and the Czech Senate.
PNND Assembly papers:
Air Jordan