Vietnam calls for comprehensive ban on nuclear testing

New York (VNA) – Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, head of the Vietnam Permanent Mission to the UN, has affirmed that a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing is an important step towards nuclear disarmament.

ASEAN rejects all kinds of nuclear tests which run counter to efforts, international standards and relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, the Chair of the ASEAN Committee in New York said on August 26 when attending a virtual meeting in commemoration of the International Day against Nuclear Tests (August 29).

The bloc supports the consolidation and implementation of nuclear weapon-free zone treaties, including the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ), he stated.

The Vietnamese diplomat stressed that all ASEAN member states’ ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is the bloc’s practical contribution to the ban on nuclear testing.

ASEAN and the UN can cooperate more to promote multilateralism as well as basic principles of international law and the UN Charter, including common efforts on nuclear test prevention, he added.

At the event, participants said that nuclear tests and the existence of nuclear weapons continue threatening international peace and security.

They called on all countries that have not joined the CTBT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to sign and ratify them without further delay to make them become effective at an early date.

The International Day against Nuclear Tests has been commemorated annually since 2010. August 28 marks the anniversary of the 1991 closure of the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, the largest nuclear test site in the former Soviet Union./.