The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) participated in a conference in Central Asia last week that focused on strengthening radiological security in Central Asia.
The focus of the conference was to identify ways to eliminate, secure, or replace the most vulnerable radioactive sources in central Asia and bolster national and regional capabilities to deter, detect, and interdict illicit trafficking of such sources.
Radioactive sources used for medical, industrial, agricultural, research and other purposes can be smuggled by criminal organizations and terrorists and used to build radioactive “dirty bombs” and other illegal ways.
The conference — held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan – brought together more than 70 stakeholders representing all five of the Central Asian republics. Representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Canada, the United States, the Russian Federation, the Eurasian Economic Commission, and other institutions and organizations were also in attendance.
The participants sought to enhance awareness of work being done by regional governments in Central Asia on radiological prevention and detection as well as international partners on radiological prevention and detection. Further, they looked for opportunities to collaborate on projects with other Central Asian Republics or international partners and worked toward establishing a regional model for radiological risk management efforts in this region.
This same model was employed in 2017 for a similar regional workshop held in Astana, Kazakhstan.
“This model not only enhances awareness of work being done by regional governments and international partners in Central Asia, but it also provides unique opportunities for collaboration and donor assistance,” NTI Senior Consultant Ioanna Iliopulos said. “I learned more from the two-day NTI-CENESS workshop on national and collective radiological and security prevention and detections efforts underway in Central Asia than from my bilateral engagement in this region that spanned over 10 years.”
NTI thinks this workshop model is also replicable and sustainable at the international level. There are current plans for a workshop called the “International Conference on the Security of Radioactive Material: The Way Forward for Prevention and Detection” in December 2018, which will be hosted by the IAEA in Vienna, Austria.
This workshop also provided a stage for the United States and Russia to cooperate on an issue of mutual interest.
“Finding areas of common ground and creating fora for U.S. and Russian representatives to have a dialogue on those areas is a common-sense approach to rebuilding trust and renewing cooperative engagement between the United States and Russia,” NTI’s Leon Ratz, who helped organize the Astana and Bishkek workshops, said. “This workshop demonstrated that such an approach is not only viable, it can also yield productive results for all involved parties.”