The Obama administration's push to win U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty could increase the pact's chances of being brought into force, supporters said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 10).
The agreement cannot become a global prohibition before it is signed and ratified by 44 "Annex 2" states -- those that possessed nuclear power or research reactors while participating in negotiations on the document in 1996. The holdout nations are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States.
"The time has arrived, even more than ever, to push ahead the nonproliferation regime," said Omar Zniber Moroccan ambassador to international organizations in Vienna (Sylvia Westall, Reuters, Sept. 8).
Morocco and France are set to lead a conference on Sept. 24 and 25 in New York aimed at advancing the treaty, Agence France-Presse reported.
There is "a good political and overall context, because of the new atmosphere created by the Obama administration," said Francoise Mangin, French ambassador to the Vienna-based organizations.
"If the U.S. and China succeed in ratifying, it will have an impact," Mangin said (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Sept. 8).
"A new license for life has been given to multilateralism and nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. There is a need to have a return for the investment," said Tibor Toth, head of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, according to Reuters.
"This is the treaty which comes the closest to delivering something meaningful," Toth said (Westall, Reuters).
Still, bringing the treaty into force would be an "uphill" battle, he said.
"But my feeling is that it's doable," he said. "It won't happen tomorrow, it won't happen next week, but it's very much doable. And I don't think in a longer perspective that we have too many other alternatives than to put this treaty in place," he said (AFP).