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| Saturday, 25 September 2004 |
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Forty-two nations urge voluntary nuclear test ban UNITED NATIONS, Friday (Reuters) Forty-two governments urged the world's nuclear powers and nuclear aspirants to extend an informal moratorium on nuclear bomb testing in the absence of a global treaty banning tests. They called on all nations that had not yet signed or ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to quickly do so, arguing that a voluntary ban "does not have the same permanent and legally binding effect as the entry into force of the treaty." The CTBT was adopted in New York in September 1996. To date, 172 states have signed the treaty and 116 have ratified it, but it will only come into force once 44 states deemed capable of producing nuclear weapons ratify it. Of the 44 states, 32 have ratified the pact. The 12 who have not are the United States, China, Colombia, North Korea, Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Vietnam. None of these 12 attended Thursday's meeting, held on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly's annual opening debate. The 42 governments signing Thursday's declaration had all either signed or ratified the CTBT already. "The longer its entry into force is delayed, the more likely that nuclear testing will resume," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the meeting in a message delivered by an aide. "Were this to happen, it would be a major setback in nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament efforts. In the era in which we live, we cannot afford such a setback," Annan's message said. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said the meeting and declaration were intended to increase the pressure on hesitant governments to embrace the test ban pact. "I have been telling the United States that it is important that they ratify the CTBT," she told reporters. "How soon they will do that, I am not in a position to say." The George W. Bush administration actively opposes the pact although officials have said they have no plans to resume nuclear testing. |
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