Nuclear test ban

The letter from K.B. Kale printed in your Sept. 30 paper raises important issues, namely will the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) assist in the process of nuclear disarmament and is Australia's support for the CTBT consistent with its past condemnation of nuclear testing?

On both points the answer is yes. The overwhelming majority of countries in the UN-158 to be exact, including the five nuclear weapons states and virtually every non-aligned country -- have supported the adoption of the CTBT. Over 100 countries have already signed the treaty. In agreeing to the CTBT they have agreed permanently to renounce nuclear testing. For the nuclear weapons states it meant a definitive end to their testing programs. This represents an invaluable achievement, and a watershed in the history of global efforts to achieve a CTBT.

Some countries would have liked to have seen the CTBT include a timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons by the nuclear weapons states. Australia is strongly committed to the objective of complete nuclear disarmament. But we must balance what is desirable with what is practical and achievable at this time. The treaty as it stands represents an historic nuclear disarmament achievement: it bans nuclear weapons tests for all time and will, for the first time, impose major constraints on the development of new generations of nuclear weapons.

Australia does not pretend the task of creating a nuclear weapons free world is an easy one, or one amenable to easy solutions. But there are solutions, many of which are discussed in the Australian sponsored report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The CTBT is an important step towards that overall solution and should be welcomed as such.

GREGSON EDWARDS

Counselor (Public Affairs)

Australian embassy

Jakarta