UNITED NATIONS, May 07. /ITAR-TASS/. Five nuclear powers: Russia, Great Britain, China, the United States and France  should without delay ratify the Protocol on security guarantees to the Treaty on a nuclear-free zone in Central Asia that they signed on Tuesday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made this statement. According to him, this achievement has become “a concrete step” aimed at the creation of the first such zone in the Northern Hemisphere.

“The Secretary-General welcomes the signing today by the nuclear-weapon States of the Protocol to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia. The Protocol commits the nuclear-weapon States to respect the application of the Treaty in Central Asia as well as not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the parties to the Treaty,” according to a UN statement.

“When the Treaty entered into force on 21 March 2009, it created the world’s first nuclear-weapon-free zone located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. The Secretary-General congratulates the five Central Asia States: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on their achievement today of the first concrete step towards the consolidation of the zone. He hopes that the nuclear-weapon States ratify the Protocol without delay,” it says. “The Secretary-General reiterates his strong support for the further establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones, which contribute to the strengthening of global norms against nuclear weapons to the benefit of non-proliferation, regional security and disarmament,” it adds.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations said after the signing of the protocol that Russia hoped to “maximally promptly” ratify the document.

The ceremony of the signing of the Protocol to the Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia was held at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday with the participation of diplomats of the countries - five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Russia, the United States, UK, France and China) and the parties to the treaty Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The Treaty on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia was signed in Semipalatinsk on September 8, 2006. Its parties assumed the obligation not to produce, not to acquire and not to place on their territories nuclear weapons or their components. The treaty does not ban the development of peaceful atomic energy industry in the region.