More than 50 nations issued a plea Wednesday for 10 more countries to ratify a 10-year old treaty banning nuclear tests, a step that would transform an informal moratorium into a binding commitment.
A meeting of “Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” at U.N. headquarters was intended to “serve as a wake-up call for those nations that have not done so to sign and ratify the CTBT,” said Bernard Bot, the Netherlands foreign minister.
The pact was adopted in New York in September 1996. So far, 176 nations have signed it and 135 have ratified.
But under the treaty’s terms, it will come into force only after it is ratified by the 44 states deemed capable of producing nuclear weapons.
To date just 34 of those states have done so. The 10 that have not are the United States, China, Colombia, North Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel and Pakistan.
President Bush’s administration actively opposes the pact although U.S. officials have said they have no plans to resume nuclear testing.
“We live with the risk of someone going ahead and testing nuclear weapons all of the time,” said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who co-chaired Wednesday’s meeting with Bot.
Downer singled out North Korea as one country that might soon do so. U.S. officials have reported signs that Pyongyang may be preparing to conduct an underground nuclear test.
“Through the horrific experiences in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese people learned first-hand that the use of nuclear weapons causes incomparable human suffering,” Japanese Vice Foreign Minister told the meeting. “We must ensure that nuclear tests are not held.”