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Democratic Republic of the Congo Set to Join Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Next Week By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The Democratic Republic of Congo next week could become the latest country to ratify the global nuclear test ban treaty, reducing the number of holdouts impeding treaty ratification to 11 countries, the head of the organization that monitors treaty compliance told Global Security Newswire yesterday (see GSN, July 21). The parliament of the central African country recently passed a law allowing ratification and now the instruments of ratification await the signature of the president, said Ambassador Wolfgang Hoffmann, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. “Now it is up to the president to sign and I think we are able to accelerate this process a little,” he said. Hoffmann just returned from an invited visit to the capital of Kinshasa, where he met with advisors to DRC President Joseph Kabila, the foreign and science ministers and the president of the parliament. “I think they might ratify next week,” he said. The country signed the treaty in October 1996 but has failed to ratify it, observers have said, probably because of its preoccupation with civil war and ethnic conflict in the country. Hoffmann expressed a degree of skepticism about securing ratification any time soon from three of the other 11 holdouts whose ratification is required by the treaty before entry into force — Israel, Iran and Egypt. The “political situation in the Middle East ... is part of our problem,” he said. “These countries are waiting for each other.” He asserted, though, that securing ratification from the United States is a key to persuading other holdouts to ratify. “The importance of this cannot be overestimated,” he said. “Once the United States ratifies this treaty, then the other parts of the puzzle will fall into place,” he said. While the Bush administration this year requested funding to reduce the preparation time necessary for conducting a nuclear test, and is pursuing research and development of new nuclear weapons capabilities, officials have said there are no plans to resume testing and break a decade-old U.S. moratorium on testing. They also have said, however, that President George W. Bush does not support ratification of the treaty. Bush’s Democratic challenger for president, Senator John Kerry (Mass.), has indicated he favors ratification. That would require first, however, overcoming largely Republican opposition in the Senate that voted against ratification in 1999.
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