Signatory countries to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty must ratify it in order to put pressure on India and North Korea to follow suit, said the chief of a preparatory commission for the treaty organization.
"If the world community will be nearly unanimous in ratifying this treaty, I have no doubt that North Korea (and India) will come along and sign and ratify this treaty," said Wolfgang Hoffmann, executive secretary of the CTBT organization's preparatory commission. The treaty, which was endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly last September, will not go into force unless 44 designated countries that either possess or have the potential to possess nuclear weapons -- including India and North Korea -- ratify it.
Pakistan, another of the 44 designated nations, also has not signed but has said it will -- after its archrival India does. So far, 144 states have signed the treaty, and four -- Fiji, Qatar, Uzbekistan and Japan -- have ratified it, according to Hoffmann, who was in Japan for a disarmament conference last week in Sapporo.