TIME TO TAKE NUCLEAR TEST- BAN TO NEW YORK:

Greenpeace urges submission of the CTBT to UN General Assembly

GENEVA / AMSTERDAM, August 20th, 1996:

Greenpeace today urged countries who want to see a permanent end to nuclear testing to take the text of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to the United Nations (UN) in New York, in time for it to be signed at the UN 51st General Assembly in September this year.

"Despite the disagreement in the Committee, there is now a text of a treaty which cannot be allowed to just sit in some dusty archive in the United Nations", said Simon Carroll, Greenpeace's representative at the CTBT negotiations in Geneva. "Although not perfect, the treaty would be sufficient to prohibit all nuclear tests forever and ensure that this ban is complied with. It's time to take it to New York and get it signed."

Today the report of the Committee which negotiated the treaty over the last two and a half years will be formally presented at a special Plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament. The report concludes that there was no consensus on the text of the treaty itself or on what action should be taken next. But although the Conference on Disarmament can only take decisions by consensus, now that the Geneva negotiations have been completed, there is nothing to prevent the great majority of countries that support the text from taking the draft treaty to the United Nations General Assembly for endorsement and then signing.

"There have been over 2000 nuclear tests - an average of one every 9 days over more than half a century", said Carroll. "A CTBT is simply too important to lose -- failure could mean that testing would eventually resume."

Greenpeace considers that responsibility for failure to reach agreement in Geneva must be shared between those countries which refused to accept the text, especially India, and those Nuclear Weapon States, in particular the United Kingdom, Russia and China, who took inflexible positions on several key issues, especially entry into force.

"The uncompromising position of the Nuclear Weapons States once again brings into doubt their commitment to a CTBT. To remove this doubt, they should be at the forefront of efforts to get a CTBT signed in New York this year. They must affirm their commitment not to resume nuclear testing pending the entry into force of the CTBT and to take further measures leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons", said Carroll.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Simon Carroll (in Geneva) : +41 77 68 12 24

Luisa Colasimone / Jon Walter (in Amsterdam) : +31 20 523 6222

Roger Spautz (in Luxembourg) : +352 547373 or +352 (0) 211 68984

Bruce Hall, Washington 202-319-2492