Russia's Ratification
of the Test Ban Turns the Heat on the US to do Likewise
"On the eve of the international meeting at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New York next week, this is a positive sign that the world is moving closer to outlawing nuclear tests," Greenpeace disarmament campaigner William Peden said. "Today's ratification by Russia puts the ball firmly in the court of the United States Senate, which rejected the treaty in October last year, and of China, India and Pakistan." Greenpeace said these four countries - which have undertaken nuclear tests but not yet ratified the CTBT - should follow Russia's example and ratify by the end of 2000.(1) Russia's ratification of the CTBT and its ratification earlier this week of START II is likely to increase pressure on the largest nuclear weapon state, the United States, at next week's NPT meeting. The US will be under fire not only for refusing to ratify the CTBT, but also because its controversial plans to deploy a ballistic missile defence system and refusal to contemplate any other nuclear disarmament measures has created new tensions in the international non-proliferation and disarmament regime, Peden said.(2) Greenpeace warned that ratification of the CTBT alone would not end the threat of nuclear weapons. Russia and other nuclear weapon states are now spending millions of dollars on so-called "sub-critical" tests, which use computer simulations, lasers and other high-tech equipment to replace the nuclear tests they conduct to verify new nuclear weapons designs. "There are still more than 30,000 nuclear warheads in the world and new nuclear weapons are still being developed," William Peden said. "The vast majority of the world's non-nuclear states want more from the nuclear weapon states than ratification of a 30 year old pledge; the real challenge is to remove the threat of nuclear annihilation by agreeing a universally adhered to ban on all nuclear weapons." Greenpeace was established in 1970 when a group of activists set sail to Amchitka, Alaska, to protest US nuclear testing there. For the last three decades it has campaigned against nuclear testing globally. This included protests at the Russia Arctic test site of Novaya Zemlya in 1991, and at the Berlin Wall and in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in the 1980s.
Notes
to the Editors: 2. Russia has proposed START III negotiations that would cut strategic nuclear arsenals down to 1500 nuclear warheads; the United States insists that this is too low a level. The US has also opposed the formation of a nuclear disarmament committee at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, and has the largest nuclear warhead maintenance and development programme of all the nuclear weapon states.
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