Global Security Newswire

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and others this week renewed calls for the end to nuclear testing, informally and ultimately through the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (see GSN, May 26).

The first International Day against Nuclear Tests is being observed Sunday, the anniversary of the initial Soviet nuclear test blast on Aug. 29, 1949, in what is now Kazakhstan, Agence France-Presse reported. The event essentially kicked off a decades-long nuclear arms race which involved thousands of atomic test explosions.

"The declaration of 29 August as the International Day against Nuclear Tests is an acknowledgment of the need to halt nuclear testing once and for all," said Tibor Toth, head of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, in a prepared statement. "The will to pursue a nuclear-weapon-free world is not in short measure but we need to observe Aug. 29 as a time to act and not to wait," he said.

The treaty has been ratified by 153 nations, but must be approved by a select group of 44 "Annex 2" states before entering into force. There are nine holdouts among that group -- China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States.

Indonesia said last spring in intended to ratify the pact. The Obama administration has also supported entry into force, but has focused first on ratification of a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms treaty (see GSN, Aug. 17).

"Now is the time for the nine states whose ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will bring it into force to show the political will and fully endorse it," Toth said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Aug. 27).

Ban this month said he wants to see the treaty brought into force in 2012, RIA Novosti reported. He supports the full suspension of nuclear testing until the pact becomes international law, a representative from the U.N. chief said yesterday during a nuclear disarmament conference in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

North Korea is believed to be the only nation to have conducted test blasts in recent years, in 2006 and again in 2009.

"It is important to provide a moratorium on nuclear tests before the treaty comes into force," said Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Mikhail Bocharnikov (RIA Novosti, Aug. 26).

Added Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in a message to the conference: "In the run-up to the International Day against Nuclear Tests, we expect to promote broader international cooperation aimed at ridding the world of the nuclear threat."

"It is important already today to start developing a comprehensive declaration on a nuclear-free world, which would reflect the determination of all countries to move step by step toward the ideals of a nuclear-free world," he said, according to Interfax (Interfax, Aug. 26).