Kazakhstan attends sessions of UN Human Rights Council and Conference on Disarmament
The UN Human Rights session, which is being held within the framework of the 75th anniversary of the UN, was attended by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, President of the UN General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, heads of states and ministers from more than 55 countries as well as leaders of international organizations.
Speaking at a sitting of the Council, M. Tleuberdi emphasized that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, continuing the course of the First President - Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev, is committed to the full achievement of both national and international human rights standards. The Minister informed the attendees on the implementation of the State-of-the-Nation Address provisions in regard with human rights protection focusing on «Listening state» concept and creation of the National Council of Public Confidence.
As practical steps to implement the Address and the UN recommendations, there have been made decisions on joining Kazakhstan the Second Optional Protocol which aims at abolishing death penalty, improving legislation on rallies and toughening of penalties for violence against women and children.
M. Tleuberdi noted the success of such humanitarian operations «Zhusan» and «Rusafa». Within the operations more than 600 Kazakhstani citizens, mostly women and children from Syria and Iraq, have been returned to their homeland. The minister stressed our country’s willingness to share its experience in this area.
Speaking about supporting the UN efforts in the field of sustainable development, the Minister announced the opening in Almaty of the UN Hub for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals for the countries of Central Asia and Afghanistan. The organization currently has 16 UN agencies with regional, subregional and country status.
During the roundtable of the Conference on Disarmament, the Kazakh Foreign Minister emphasized the country’s continued commitment to the implementation of the Elbasy initiative on achieving a nuclear-free world by 2045. Mr. Tleuberdi outlined the current crisis situation in the field of disarmament and urged delegations to begin substantive work to develop new agreements in the field of nuclear disarmament, stop production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, prevent arms race in outer space and provide security guarantees to non-nuclear states.
As priority tasks for the next five years, Tleuberdi outlined the need to continue work on expanding cooperation between nuclear-weapon-free zones including the Central Asian region.
