U.S., China urged to stop hindering atom test ban pact

Posted 09 18 2007 11:19PM

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States and China should showleadership and ratify the decade-old Comprehensive Nuclear TestBan Treaty so it can take effect, the president of a CTBTreview conference said on Tuesday.

Some 100 treaty members at the meeting were expected laterin the day to issue a declaration calling for ratification from10 laggard signatories to transform the 1996 accord from aninformal moratorium into a binding document.

Backing from the United States and China, both permanentmembers of the U.N. Security Council, is urgent, said ForeignMinister Bruno Stagno of Costa Rica, which with Austriaco-chaired the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Forceof the CTBT.

"We believe that (U.S.) leadership is necessary, much likewe would also like to see leadership on behalf of China,"Stagno told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting of around100 nations in Vienna -- home of the CTBT's administrativebody.

"A political binding moratorium is simply not sufficient,it does not give us sufficient confidence and trust," Stagnosaid.

"When we look at North Korea and Iran, (and) developmentsin other areas, we need to ensure that there is mutualconfidence and trust," he said, mentioning two CTBT signatoriesthat have not ratified and are now seen as nuclearproliferation threats.

The CTBT has so far been ratified by 140 states in all andlists in an annex 44 that have nuclear capabilities already. Ofthose, 34 have both signed and ratified the pact -- includingnuclear weapons powers Russia, Britain and France.

Both North Korea, which sparked global condemnation when ittested a nuclear bomb last year, and Iran, suspected by Westernpowers to be secretly developing nuclear weapons, are on thelist of annex countries that have yet to ratify.

India and Pakistan, both with nuclear arsenals, and Israel,an unconfirmed but widely assumed nuclear weapons power, alsohave not ratified the treaty. They are the only three nationsthat did not join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Some laggard countries, such as the U.S. and China, wereconcerned in the past that those not adhering the moratoriumcould not be adequately detected or deterred, others facedconstitutional problems. While the U.S. supports a moratoriumon nuclear tests, it does not support the treaty and has notsent any representatives to the conference.