November 16, 2001	Friday	Shaba'an 29, 1422

UNITED NATIONS: The United States’ two-track arms control policy of pursuing unilateral initiatives while avoiding international arrangements has been highlighted by its near- simultaneous rejection of an international treaty banning nuclear test explosions and agreement on deep cuts in its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Treaty supporters are grappling with ways to achieve this goal in the face of increasing US resistance.

The administration of President George W. Bush has been hostile to the CTBT, which the Bill Clinton administration negotiated only to have a Republican- controlled Senate decline to ratify it in 1998. Also on Tuesday, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced they would reduce their stocks of long-range nuclear weapons by two-thirds within ten years.

However, these cuts will not be codified in a treaty but would instead take the form of a series of unilateral cuts. While this may seem immaterial, arms control advocates say, the Pentagon and National Security Council are filled with officials who prefer unilateral steps since there will be no way to prove that the cuts have been made. The reductions can be abandoned or reversed at any time, they add.

In contrast, the CTBT would be legally binding and have a vast inspection system to verify compliance.

Not only did Washington boycott the CTBT conference, it also took the unprecedented step of requesting that its nameplate be removed from its seat in the conference room. The United Nations rejected this attempted diplomatic snub, saying that since the meeting was for all signatories of the treaty — including the United States — seats would be reserved for all of them.

This was the latest step by Washington to distance itself from the treaty. Last week, during a General Assembly meeting on disarmament, the United States was the only country to vote against a simple procedural resolution to place the CTBT on the Assembly’s agenda next year. The vote was 140 to one; even other countries that have not ratified the treaty — including India, Pakistan and Israel — do not want to eliminate the treaty from the agenda.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.