MORE COUNTRIES RATIFY GLOBAL TREATY BANNING NUCLEAR TEST EXPLOSIONS

AP Worldstream
Jun 27, 2006

Seven countries have ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty since November, the Vienna-based organization that administers
the accord said Tuesday, bringing to 132 the number of nations that
have endorsed the pact.

The countries were Antigua and Barbuda, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Haiti,
Suriname, Vietnam and Zambia, said Volodimir Yelchenko, chairman of
the organization’s preparatory commission established to prepare for
the treaty’s entry into force.

However the treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions, will not enter
until it has been ratified by 44 states _ listed in an annex _ who
participated in a 1996 disarmament conference and who possess nuclear
power or research reactors

Only 34 of those have so far done so, Yelchenko said. The holdouts
include the United States, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North
Korea.

According to the organization’s Web site, Haiti ratified the treaty
_ adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and opened for
signature in New York in September 1996 _ in December 2005 and the
rest this year.

Yelchenko said Vietnam’s ratification was "very crucial" because the
country was listed on the annex.

"All of us think that ratification by Vietnam will also give a very
powerful signal to some other countries of the region, for example
Indonesia, who are quite close to the completion of the ratification
process," Yelchenko said.

Ethiopia and Armenia also have ratified the treaty but have yet to
deposit official legal papers at United Nations headquarters, said
Tibor Toth, the preparatory commission’s executive secretary.