“At a time when the international community is seeing a renewal of big-power rivalry and debating the pros and cons of nuclear technology, the initiative of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in establishing the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security is both prescient and timely,” says Ong Keng Yong, Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He is referring to the decision to award the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security to King Abdullah II of Jordan who has worked tirelessly to secure peace and stability in the Middle East where efforts to declare the region free of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons failed in 2015.

Ong Keng Yong rightly points out that the care and concern King Abdullah II has shown for the innocent civilians displaced by armed conflicts deserves international recognition, and this is what the award conferred on him does.

Ong Keng Yong is also Executive Deputy Chairman of the prestigious S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.