MOSCOW WITHDRAWS RATIFICATION OF NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY

Tue 17 October 2023:

On Tuesday, October 17, the Russian parliament announced that it was withdrawing its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

It argues that this step was necessary because of “the irresponsible attitude” of the United States towards international security.

Before a discussion and legislative vote on withdrawing ratification, Speaker of the Duma Vyacheslav Volodin declared, “We are withdrawing the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the interests of ensuring the security of our country.”

The US, the speaker claimed, failed to endorse the 1996 deal because of its “irresponsible attitude to global security issues”, despite Russia having done so in 2000.

He added that the Russian Federation will do everything “to protect its citizens and to maintain global strategic parity”.

The announcement from the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament comes a week after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was not ready to say whether or not Russia should resume nuclear testing to issue a stern warning to the West.

While Russia will revoke the ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty, it will continue to remain a signatory. It means that it will continue to cooperate with the test ban treaty organisation and alert the world before any nuclear test.

Russian officials have clarified that revoking ratification doesn’t mean the country will test a nuclear bomb.

Revocation by Russia means that the world could return to an era of nuclear testing, which might also trigger a nuclear race between the US and its adversaries Russia and China.

However, Russian President Putin has maintained that his nation is not willing to return to testing. “I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to return to testing,” Putin said on Oct 5. “I am not ready to say whether we really need to conduct tests or not, but it is possible theoretically to behave in the same way as the United States,” he added.

The erstwhile Soviet Union conducted the last nuclear test in 1990, with newborn Russia yet to open its account. The US, on the other hand, conducted its last nuclear test in 1992.

According to the United Nations, in the five decades between 1945 and 1996, more than 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out, 1,032 of them by the United States and 715 of them by the Soviet Union.

Who has signed and ratified?

In total, 187 states have signed the treaty and 178 have ratified it legally in their parliaments.

Of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons, the United Kingdom, France and Russia have signed and ratified.

The United States, Israel and China have signed the document, but not ratified it.

Meanwhile, India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified the treaty.

The CTBT bans “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion” anywhere in the world. Any resumption of nuclear tests could precipitate a new nuclear arms race between the big powers.

In the preamble to the treaty, the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons is highlighted.

The intention was to do this “by constraining the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons and ending the development of advanced new types of nuclear weapons, constitutes an effective measure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in all its aspects.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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