Last week, the Turkish resort city of Antalya hosted the fifth annual Antalya Diplomacy Forum. Particular attention was drawn to the speech by Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who once again raised the issue of reforming the United Nations.

Held since 2021 at the initiative of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the forum brings together political leaders, diplomats, experts, business representatives, media, and civil society. It serves as a platform for bilateral and multilateral contacts, political consultations, and informal diplomacy.

This year, alongside Turkey and Kazakhstan, the forum was attended by delegations from Azerbaijan, Qatar, Pakistan, Syria, Georgia, North Macedonia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, all led by their respective heads of state.

A widely circulated photograph from the opening ceremony, showing Erdoğan and Tokayev in conversation, was interpreted by some observers as reflecting the Kazakh president’s standing and the level of engagement between the two leaders.

Political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev pointed to what he described as a convergence in messaging between the two presidents.

“Opening the forum, President Erdoğan stated that ‘the world is experiencing a crisis of direction alongside a crisis of order.’ He noted that ‘mechanisms designed to protect human rights and international security remain ineffective and often inactive in the face of serious violations.’ Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, judging by his speech, sought, drawing on his experience and position, to respond to the concerns expressed by the Turkish and other leaders,” Ashimbayev said.

Another Kazakh political analyst, Andrey Chebotarev, highlighted the broader diplomatic context, noting that Erdoğan is expected to pay a state visit to Kazakhstan on May 14.

“In addition to bilateral cooperation, this visit is linked to the upcoming informal summit of the Organization of Turkic States in the city of Turkestan. It is worth recalling that following the previous informal OTS summit, held online on March 31, 2021, Turkestan was officially recognized as the spiritual capital of the Turkic world. Holding a similar summit in person is intended to underscore both the city’s significance and Kazakhstan’s role within the Turkic community,” Chebotarev said.

Analyzing Tokayev’s remarks, Chebotarev also pointed to what he described as a consolidation of Kazakhstan’s position on the situation in the Middle East, particularly in the context of tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran.

“Astana had previously signaled its distancing from all parties to the conflict, while expressing solidarity with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which, despite not being direct participants, were affected by strikes linked to the broader confrontation. In this context, the Kazakh president’s call for restraint and a cessation of hostilities is not merely an expression of neutrality but reflects the position of an active international actor seeking a diplomatic resolution,” he said.

One of the central elements of Tokayev’s speech was his assessment of developments surrounding Iran. He called for greater awareness of global dynamics and emphasized the need to address root causes.

“The core issue is the proliferation of nuclear technologies and nuclear weapons. This must be the central topic of negotiations when discussing the conflict around Iran,” Tokayev said.

Nuclear non-proliferation remains a cornerstone of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. The country is one of the few in the world to have voluntarily renounced nuclear weapons, despite inheriting the world’s fourth-largest arsenal following the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time, Kazakhstan possessed more than 100 missiles, 1,040 nuclear warheads, 40 strategic bombers, and 370 nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

Kazakhstan was also the only Muslim-majority country to possess such a nuclear capability, ranking fourth globally at the time.

In the documentary Kazakh: History of the Golden Man by Oliver Stone, Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, recalled that period. According to him, figures such as former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. Secretary of State James Baker visited Kazakhstan to discuss the fate of its nuclear arsenal.

“They all came and asked: What will you do with the missiles?” Nazarbayev said.

He added that Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry, then headed by Tokayev, received a letter from several Islamic countries suggesting that Kazakhstan should retain its nuclear capability. Later, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat visited Kazakhstan on behalf of Muammar Gaddafi to inquire about the issue.

“He said he had come on behalf of our friends. Of course, I never considered selling those missiles. I simply said: ‘Maintaining them is very expensive; Kazakhstan cannot afford it.’ He asked how much it would cost. I jokingly said $20 billion. But he took it seriously and said he would pass the message along,” Nazarbayev said.

In Antalya, Tokayev also addressed the issue of UN reform, calling for a more candid assessment of its prospects.

“Everyone talks about the need to support the UN. That is a fact. But everyone also says the organization must not only be supported, but reformed. Yes, that is true. But let us be completely frank. No one believes this will happen very soon, because we have been talking for a long time about reforms, changes, and restructuring of the UN, but this is not happening. We must honestly acknowledge that the Security Council is the main element for reforming the UN,” he said.

According to Tokayev, so-called middle powers often demonstrate a higher degree of responsibility in international affairs than major powers.

“Of course, I am not claiming we are the best in the world. But we demonstrate a high level of responsibility in global affairs, both in practice and diplomacy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that today, middle powers often show greater responsibility than major powers represented in the Security Council, which unfortunately frequently block solutions to key global problems,” he said.

Political analyst Marat Shibutov described the tone of Tokayev’s speech as notably direct.

“He delivered a sober and candid diagnosis of what is happening in the world,” Shibutov said.

Tokayev did not come to Antalya with a detailed blueprint for remaking the international system. But he did offer a clear message: the old mechanisms are failing, the risks are growing, and states such as Kazakhstan intend to argue more forcefully for restraint, negotiation, and institutional reform. Whether that message will shape events is another matter. But in Antalya, Tokayev made clear that Astana wants to be heard not only as a regional actor, but as a country with something broader to say about how an increasingly unstable world should be managed.

On April 17 at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that in the Iran conflict, the deeper issue is not freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz but the spread of nuclear technologies and arms. That, he said, is the issue that should stand at the center of negotiations over the crisis

Astana has long treated its anti-nuclear stance as a core state principle. Tokayev has said explicitly in the past that a nuclear-weapon-free world is a policy priority of his government. That aspiration has become part of Kazakhstan’s national identity. At Antalya, he did not produce a new line. He applied an established one to a new crisis.

Kazakhstan’s sensitivity on the issue lies at Semey, formerly Semipalatinsk, in eastern Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union built one of its principal nuclear test grounds, a site covering about 18,500 square kilometers. Between 1949 and 1989, the USSR conducted 456 nuclear tests there, including 116 atmospheric tests and 340 underground ones. The first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated there on August 29, 1949. For Kazakhstan, Semey is not only a chapter in Soviet strategic history; it is a prolonged experience of severe human and environmental exposure, environmental damage, and official secrecy borne on Kazakh territory.

That record helps explain why Tokayev’s public language has, on two recent occasions, echoed Donald Trump’s. On April 8, Tokayev said that the Middle East ceasefire “was made possible through the goodwill and wisdom of U.S. President Donald Trump, Iran’s leadership, and other countries involved in the conflict,” explicitly crediting Trump’s role in making de-escalation possible. At Antalya on April 17, Tokayev said Trump had raised the UN’s dysfunction “very eloquently” at the previous September’s UN General Assembly session, adding, “I fully agree with him.” The convergence is notable. Tokayev’s emphasis on non-proliferation, restraint, and negotiated crisis management aligns with Trump’s support for the truce and his criticism of a UN-centered system that Tokayev likewise sees as increasingly unable to resolve major crises.

At independence, Kazakhstan inherited 1,410 nuclear warheads deployed on Soviet strategic systems, including intercontinental missiles and heavy bombers. It acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1994 and transferred its last nuclear warhead to Russia in April 1995. This history gives Kazakhstan a place in non-proliferation diplomacy that few states can claim. It absorbed the consequences of nuclear testing and then renounced a major inherited nuclear arsenal.

This history has never receded into symbolism; its human consequences endure. Populations near the test site and in downwind settlements were exposed to fallout over decades, and the medical afterlife remains an active field of research. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, established a prospective cohort study near the Semipalatinsk test site, known as the SEMI-NUC project, to track long-term outcomes among residents exposed to chronic low and moderate doses of radiation.

Registry-based research has found that exposed populations are subject to elevated cardiovascular mortality risks, while other studies have examined thyroid disease, cancer, reproductive effects, and other lasting health consequences. According to some estimates, low-dose radiation from the Semipalatinsk program affected more than a million people over time. Entire communities lived with repeated exposure under Soviet secrecy before the scale of contamination was finally publicly acknowledged. For Kazakhstan, this is not a single closed historical episode but a dispersed health burden carried across decades.

These events and phenomena entered politics through public mobilization as well as state action. In 1989, the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement emerged as a mass mobilization against continued testing. It linked Kazakhstani and American anti-nuclear activists, drawing in writers, scientists, workers, and ordinary citizens. Tied by name to the better-known Nevada test site in the United States, it became a major force in the campaign to shut the site down. What had long been regarded in Moscow as a remote regional burden turned into a nationwide political question. The permanent closure of the test ground on August 29, 1991, was not only an act of republican authority but also a turning point for society at large. Anti-nuclear politics in Kazakhstan were never only official doctrine; they were also a broad social cause.

It is therefore not surprising that nuclear questions still carry unusual moral and political weight in the country. A survey conducted by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies in August 2024 found that 53.1% of respondents supported building nuclear power plants, 32.5% opposed the idea, and 14.4% were undecided. Among opponents, the main concerns were the risk of accidents and environmental damage. The survey covered 1,200 respondents across Kazakhstan’s 17 regions and the three largest cities, so the results were not merely a local reflex around the former test site. In Kazakhstan, nuclear policy still passes through memories of bodily risk, contamination, and distrust carried forward from Semey.

The October 2024 referendum clarified the distinction. Official results showed that 71.12% of participating voters supported the construction of a nuclear power plant, with turnout above 63%. The legacy of Semipalatinsk no longer operates as a simple veto on civilian nuclear development. But that is precisely why Tokayev’s Antalya remarks carry weight. Civilian nuclear power, domestic energy policy, and the spread of nuclear arms are different questions, and public debate in Kazakhstan increasingly distinguishes among them. The referendum did not erase Semey’s historical weight. It made clearer the distinction between peaceful nuclear use under safeguards and the older fear attached to uncontrolled nuclear danger.

There is also a practical diplomatic continuity behind Tokayev’s words on Iran. Kazakhstan welcomed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, said that its implementation would strengthen non-proliferation and regional security, and pointed to its own contribution through two rounds of talks in Almaty. It also agreed to host the IAEA Low Enriched Uranium Bank at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Oskemen, giving Kazakhstan an operational place inside the institutions of non-proliferation. The Almaty negotiations made Kazakhstan a venue for negotiation rather than a distant observer, while the LEU Bank placed part of the non-proliferation system on Kazakh territory. Tokayev’s remarks in Antalya are deeply embedded both in Kazakhstan’s historical experience and in its diplomatic practice.

Tokayev’s intervention was more than a comment on a passing crisis. It came from a state on whose territory the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb and whose citizens lived with the fallout: a state whose post-Soviet identity was shaped by closing the test site and voluntarily renouncing inherited warheads, and whose diplomacy has consistently sought to transform that history into international norms and institutions. In Antalya, Tokayev drew on Kazakhstan’s own historical experience of the strategically more consequential danger of nuclear proliferation to argue that the Iran crisis should not be reduced to maritime throughput or commercial disruption in the Gulf.