Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, head of the Vietnam Permanent Mission to the UN (Source: VNA) New York (VNA) – Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, head of the VietnamPermanent Mission to the UN, has affirmed that a comprehensive ban on nucleartesting is an important step towards nuclear disarmament.
ASEAN rejects all kinds of nuclear testswhich run counter to efforts, international standards and relevant resolutionsof the UN Security Council, the Chair of the ASEAN Committee in New York saidon August 26 when attending a virtual meeting in commemoration of theInternational Day against Nuclear Tests (August 29).
The bloc supports the consolidation andimplementation of nuclear weapon-free zone treaties, including the SoutheastAsia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ), he stated.
The Vietnamese diplomat stressed that allASEAN 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 topromote multilateralism as well as basic principles of international law andthe UN Charter, including common efforts on nuclear test prevention, he added.
At the event, participants said thatnuclear tests and the existence of nuclear weapons continue threateninginternational peace and security.
They called on all countries that have not joinedthe CTBT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) to signand ratify them without further delay to make them become effective at an earlydate.
The International Day against Nuclear Testshas been commemorated annually since 2010. August 28 marks the anniversary ofthe 1991 closure of the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, the largestnuclear test site in the former Soviet Union./.
VNA
