UN urges states to ratify nuclear test ban

The UN secretary-urged has urged all states to sign and ratify the nuclear test ban as a "critical step on the road to a nuclear-free world".

Ban Ki-moon's request marked the fifth International Day against Nuclear Tests on 29 August, the first since Iran's nuclear deal was signed in mid-July.

"The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is essential for the elimination of nuclear weapons," Ban said in a message.

"It is a legally-binding, verifiable means by which to constrain the quantitative and qualitative development of nuclear weapons," he said.

The president of the General Assembly, Sam Kutesa, said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear programme, reached in Vienna between the international negotiators and Iran, was an important step forward.

"I hope this agreement will benefit the non-proliferation regime and will lead to greater mutual understanding and cooperation on the many serious security challenges in the Middle East and beyond," said Kutesa, a former foreign minister of Uganda.

The International Day against Nuclear Tests was declared in December 2009.

It aims to increase awareness and understanding of "the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world".

This year marks 70 years since the first nuclear weapon was detonated in the US state of New Mexico in July 1945. Nowadays, residual radiation at the site is about ten times higher than normal background radiation in the area.

"Pristine environments and populated communities in Central Asia, North Africa, North America and the South Pacific," had since suffered, said Ban.

"Many have never recovered from the resulting environmental, health and economic damage. Poisoned groundwater, cancer, leukaemia, radioactive fallout - these are among the poisonous legacies of nuclear testing."

The UN secretary-general welcomed the voluntary moratoria that nuclear-armed states have placed on testing, but said this did not substitute for a legally binding treaty.

"On this International Day, I repeat my longstanding call on all remaining states to sign and ratify the treaty - especially the eight necessary for its entry into force - as a critical step on the road to a nuclear-weapon-free world," he said.