U.S. Pledges $400 Million to Kazakhs : Aid: Announcement comes during visit by president of former Soviet republic. In return, it will destroy nuclear arsenal.

President Clinton pledged nearly $400 million in aid to oil-rich Kazakhstan on Monday after the former Soviet republic agreed to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and destroy its nuclear weapons.

Clinton announced the economic assistance in a White House ceremony with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who presented Clinton with documents formally acceding to the non-proliferation pact.

The large increase in aid to Kazakhstan--which last year received $91 million from Washington--was conditional upon the country’s willingness to dismantle more than 1,000 nuclear warheads left over from the Soviet arsenal and to adopt Western-style economic reforms. Nazarbayev has been courting Western investment and technical assistance, particularly in his country’s energy and mining industries.

Clinton also said that Kazakhstan is taking the first steps toward affiliation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that the United States and Kazakhstan may conduct joint military training as early as this year.

The moves represent progress toward the Administration’s goals of reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation and fostering free-market economic reforms in the states of the former Soviet Union.

By ratifying the non-proliferation pact, Kazakhstan joins Belarus and Ukraine among ex-Soviet states agreeing to give up the nuclear weapons left on their territory after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now only Russia will continue to maintain a nuclear arsenal, at a considerably reduced size from the days of the Soviet empire.

The United States has offered political and financial incentives to the three other nuclear states to disarm. In the case of Kazakhstan, Washington will provide $170 million over the next two years to ensure the safe and secure dismantlement of the weapons.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan was left with 104 SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles, each with 10 high-yield warheads capable of destroying American long-range weapons in their silos. All of those and a handful of smaller nuclear weapons will be destroyed under terms of the agreements ratified by Kazakhstan’s Parliament in December.

Clinton said that Nazarbayev’s leadership in nuclear issues and in pushing the Central Asian republic toward democracy and open markets “will also allow Kazakhstan and the United States to develop a full and mutually beneficial partnership.”

In addition to the $170 million for nuclear dismantlement, the United States will provide $226 million to help Kazakhstan improve telecommunications, build a stronger banking industry, convert its defense plants to civilian use and develop its abundant natural resources.

Washington is depending on its strengthened ties to Alma-Ata, the Kazakh capital, as a bulwark against Iranian encroachment in Central Asia. Tehran is bidding to improve its relations with Kazakhstan and the other Asian republics of the former Soviet Union to expand its political and ideological influence in the region.

Said Clinton: “The United States looks forward to being Kazakhstan’s friend and partner in the months and the years ahead. We believe we have established the basis for a long-term partnership of immense strategic importance and economic potential for the United States.”