DISARMAMENT: Nuclear Veto Negotiators Admit Defeat

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug 15 1996 (IPS) - The special committee negotiating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for nuclear testing, admitted they had failed in a report to the Disarmament Conference Thursday.

This organism did not manage to achieve the consensus needed for approval of the draft treaty the Conference had been negotiating since Jan. 1994.

Although this frustrating outcome represented a hard knock for the Conference, the text can still be used as a treaty proposal which some countries are ready to present for signing at the UN General Assembly. The United States came up with this idea Wednesday.

The outcome of these negotiations mean the Disarmament Conference will be unable to complete its allotted task of preparing a treaty proposal and submitting it to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 17.

In the plenary sessions Thursday, Chile’s ambassador Jorge Berguno warned of the consequences this could have for the Conference.

“The reason for the existence of the Conference, its political credibility, its institutionality and connection with the whole gamut of disarmament questions will be at stake,” he warned.

He added that proof must be given of all the Conference members’ interest in “preserving, strengthening and perfecting the only global organism for negotiating multilateral disarmament.”

The majority of the 61 conference member states had announced they would give their agreement to the CTBT, and both Iran, which had doubts up to the last minute, and Cuba gave the treaty their critical approval Thursday.

The project, which was finally vetoed by India, has three main parts.

Firstly, the description of the extent of the ban. Here, India demanded not only a veto on tests, but also clear objectives for decommissioning of all nuclear weapons and global disarmament.

Secondly, suggestions for an international verification system to allow the detection and identification of any nuclear explosion.

Until two weeks ago, China had questioned some aspects of the verification system, but US mediation persuaded them to back down.

The political weight of the United States meant the president of the special committee, the Dutch ambassador, Jaap Ramaker, agreed to reopen the document for further edition after it had already been declared closed.

The last part of the text dealt with the conditions in which the treaty must come into action. After discussing several formulas, Ramaker presented a format which demanded ratification by the 44 nations with levels of advanced scientific research into nuclear reactors.

India rejected all the mechanisms proposed because they tended to present the ratification of the treaty by New Delhi as a basic condition for it coming into power.

The Disarmament Conference will meet again on Aug. 20.