5th Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Vienna, 17-18 September 2007

Officials from over 100 States, UN organizations and non-governmental organizations attended the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty (CTBT) in Vienna, Austria from 17 to 18 September 2007. This was the fifth meeting to promote the CTBT. The Conference was jointly presided over by the Foreign Ministers of Austria (H.E. Dr. Ursula Plassnik) and Costa Rica (H.E. Bruno Stagno Ugarte). This was the first time that the Conference was chaired by two Co-Presidents. H.E. Dato’ Mohd Arshad M. Hussain, Permanent Representative of Malaysia, speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), expressed NAM’s strong concern at the growing resort to unilateralism. He underlined that multilateralism and multilaterally agreed solutions provided the only sustainable method of addressing disarmament and international security issues. He reiterated NAM’s long-standing and principled position for the total elimination of all nuclear testing. He also expressed NAM’s concern about the decision of one nuclear weapon State’s alleged intention to invest in a Reliable   Replacement Warhead, thus modernizing its nuclear infrastructure and raising the prospect of returning to underground testing.