ICAN marks first International Day Against Nuclear Tests

Sunday August 29th 2010

The first United Nations Day Against Nuclear Tests is being held on Sunday August 29. The date commemorates the closure of the former Soviet Union’s main nuclear test site, Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan in 1991, after 42 years of nuclear testing.

Seven nations are acknowledged to have tested nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1998 – the US, former USSR, France, UK, China, India and Pakistan.

North Korea tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.

The day’s focus is on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Despite 153 countries having ratified the CTBT, it has not yet come into force due to the failure of nine ‘nuclear capable’ nations - China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, India, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States - to join the treaty.
 
ICAN calls on these and other nations that have not yet done so to ratify the CTBT without further delay, and for all nations to support the adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention banning the use, production and possession of nuclear weapons.

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