Global Security Newswire

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen yesterday urged nine key nations to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Irish Times reported (see GSN, July 27).

The United States and eight additional "Annex 2" states must still join the global prohibition on nuclear test blasts before it can enter into force. The other holdouts are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.

“Few will deny that the first decade of the 21st century was largely unproductive for disarmament and nonproliferation,” even though nuclear arms control issues have been an international focus for some time, Cowen said at the Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels, Belgium. Officials from four of the holdouts -- China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan -- were in attendance at the summit.

“The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty aims to hamper the development and the qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and, as such, is one of the essential pillars in the nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation framework,” the Irish taoiseach said. “Its entry into force would significantly strengthen international security architecture.”

Cowen lauded Indonesia's movement toward ratifying the document and pressed other nations to take similar steps.

A “rules-based global order” would maximize the likelihood of continued worldwide security, he said (Arthur Beesley, Irish Times, Oct. 6).