NEW YORK, 7 SEPTEMBER – In a UN plenary session against nuclear tests, Italy made a plea to the General Assembly for legally binding norms and more signatures and ratifications of the CTBT.
Italy’s statement took place as co-chair of the Conference for the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an international agreement which, more than 25 years after its opening for signature, has not yet become part of the international law.
“Progress on the way to disarmament and non-proliferation requires that the current voluntary moratoria on nuclear test explosions be translated into a binding norm”, said the Permanent Representative of Italy to the UN, Ambassador Maurizio Massari, recalling that to this end Italy co-chaired last year, together with South Africa, the Ministerial Conference pursuant to art. XIV of the CTBT, aimed at promoting the entry into force of the Treaty. Under the Italian co-chairmanship, which will continue for another year, important results have already been recorded, such as the recent ratifications by Tuvalu, Gambia, Dominica and East Timor. In this context, Italy continues to support the extraordinary action of the Executive Secretary of the CTBTO, Robert Floyd.
Referring to Russia’s blocking of the consensus on the final document of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference on the 27 of August – which could have reaffirmed the importance of the entry into force of the CTBT – Massari underlined how “current threats to global peace and security make it more urgent than ever to renew all efforts for the universalization and entry into force of the CTBT”.
The Italian message also contained an exhortation to North Korea to refrain from further provocations and to take concrete steps towards a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization: “We call on the DPRK to engage in credible negotiations in this respect and to comply with relevant UNSC Resolutions, to return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to sign and ratify the CTBT”. (@OnuItalia)
