India urged to sign CTBT

VIENNA: As the Indo-US nuclear deal goes through the motions, India was today asked to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban  Treaty(CTBT) by the UN organisation overseeing this non-proliferation measure.
      
While announcing that Iraq had signed the CTBT in New York on Wednesday, the Executive secretary of the CTBT preparator commission Tibor Toth said India, North Korea and Pakistan must also become signatories to the treaty.
     
The three countries in the Asian region are also important for enforcing CTBT and  therefore "we urge them to sign the treaty," Toth told reporters here today. The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will consider granting waiver to India tomorrow to enable India resume global nuclear commerce and take the nuclear deal with the US forward.
      
India has ruled out signing CTBT under any circumstances rejecting constant appeals and has not succumbed to any pressure. Japan had early this month urged India to sign the CTBT and the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).       

New Delhi has maintained that it is not a signatory to NPT or CTBT as it has fulfilled all major conditionalities required for non-proliferation and has an impeccable record in this record.
     
Pakistan has said it will not sign the CTBT unless India does so.
     
Toth said Iraq's action was an important step in the area of prohibition of  weapons of mass destruction taking into account the crisis over this issue in the past 15 years. With Iraq coming on board, 179 countries have signed the CTBT.
     
Toth also urged those signatory countries who have not ratified the treaty yet to do so to enable its enforcement.

The UN's Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation(CTBTO) on Tuesday said test moratorium by all nations should continue so that the door to nuclear-testing can be completely closed.
    
"CTBTO sincerely hopes that the nuclear test moratorium by the countries around the world continues so that the door to nuclear test can be completely closed," Annika Thunborg of the Chief Public Information and Legal and External Affairs Division said.
    
India, although, not a signatory to CTBT had officially said that it would not prevent the treaty from entering into force, she said.
    
The CTBT can come into force only if 44 specific countries ratify the treaty.
    
So far 35 countries have ratified the Treaty including Russia, France and Britain. Those who have to sign to make the treaty come into force include USA, China, Egypt, Israel, Iran and Indonesia. Both US and Russia have not tested since early 1990s and France and China have not tested since 1996.
    
After India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, it was only North Korea which had tested. "We want all tests to be banned completely..." Thunborg said.
    
The CTBTO also announced its on-site inspection in Kazakhstan next month with a team of 40 inspectors and 40 tonnes of equipment as an important step to strengthen the international framework of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
    
The former Soviet Union's nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk in the east of Kazakhstan, which had witnessed over 456 nuclear tests and peaceful explosions, was closed down after Kazakhstan became an independent state in 1991.
    
The region in the Kazakh steppe is now deserted and pockmarked by countless craters.
    
The organisation that monitors the comprehensive ban on nuclear tests will conduct a large-scale exercise to test one of the key elements of its global alarm system-on-site inspections.
   
Toth said the exercise will be the largest and the most ambitious project ever undertaken in the history of the 12-year old CTBTO and will reinforce the CTBT's significant role in the international framework of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
    
Several scientists and journalists will visit Kazakhstan from all over the world to witness an endeavour that is of great significance for the safety of earth, Toth said.
    
The inspection techniques used in the continuation period are considered more intrusive and compromise a number of geophysical techniques, including magnetic field mapping, to measure deviations in the earth's magnetic field caused by iron-containing objects in the ground.