U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to lead the U.S. delegation at a conference aimed at promoting entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the White House announced yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 9).
The biannual event, scheduled for Sept. 24-25 in New York, offers "a forum for discussions on how best to encourage states to sign and ratify this important nonproliferation treaty," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a prepared statement. Washington sent a delegation to the event in 1999 but skipped the next four sessions during the Bush administration.
The United States is one of 44 "Annex 2" nations that must ratify the pact before it can enter into force. It is also among nine holdouts from that group; the others are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.
The Obama administration has made CTBT ratification one of its major nonproliferation goals. The Senate must sign off on such a move, which would formalize a longstanding but voluntary suspension of U.S. nuclear test blasts.
"U.S. participation in this year’s conference will reaffirm the strong commitment of the Obama administration to support the CTBT and to work with other nations to map out a comprehensive diplomatic strategy to secure the treaty’s entry into force," Gibbs said. "This commitment to realize the promise of the CTBT is part of the president's comprehensive agenda to prevent nuclear proliferation, and to pursue the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons."
Clinton will give the U.S. national statement at the meeting, while Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher plans several one-on-one meetings with other participants, the release states (White House release, Sept. 15).
"Everyone is talking about what it takes" to make the test ban the global rule of law, Thomas D'Agostino, head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, said yesterday. He said there is not yet consensus on the question, the Associated Press reported (Associated Press/Google News, Sept. 15).
D'Agostino was in Vienna, Austria, where he made his first-ever visit to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.
"I wanted more information and to dig out the details" on the system for identifying nuclear blasts, he said, according to a CTBTO press release.
A panel of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences is preparing a report on "what it takes to ratify a comprehensive test ban treaty," D'Agostino said. The document would address technical issues "and then we can take things from there," he added.
The verification system for nuclear tests -- including monitoring stations and other infrastructure -- "is a reality, a reality that has been tried and tested" by North Korean nuclear tests in 2006 and May of this year, said CTBTO chief Tibor Toth (Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization release, Sept. 15).