Global Security Newswire

Indonesia yesterday pledged to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty once the United States does so, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, June 4).

The two nations are among the 44 states that must sign off on the 1996 pact before it can enter into force. The other holdouts are China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said he would press for ratification of the treaty by the Senate (see GSN, April 6).

"We share [Obama's] vision of a world in which nuclear weapons have been eradicated," Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said during a trip to Washington, where he met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "We trust that he will succeed in getting the CTBT ratified -- and we promise that when that happens, Indonesia will immediately follow suit."

Indonesia possesses nuclear reactors but not nuclear weapons (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, June 8).

U.S. Representative Ellen Tauscher, who has been nominated as the next undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, today reaffirmed the administration's support for the treaty, the Press Trust of India reported.

"I share the administration's commitment to obtaining the Senate's advice and consent to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to launch a diplomatic effort to bring states that have not signed the treaty on board so that it can be brought into force," she said in prepared testimony during her nomination hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Lalit Jha, Press Trust of India/Business Standard, June 9).