Politics & Law
Việt Nam, Dominican Republic issue Joint Statement
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| A nuclear test conducted by the United States at Enewetak Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean in November 1952. — Photo news.un.org |
NEW YORK — Ambassador Đặng Đình Quý, head of Việt Nam's Permanent Mission to the UN, has said 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 Wednesday 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 co-operate 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 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.
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. — VNS
