UNITED NATIONS, Sept 6: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said on Friday that “the total elimination of nuclear weapons must remain the top priority” for the international community.

“Innocent people throughout the world are still threatened by weapons of mass destruction,” Annan said in a yearbook, published by the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs.

“They face additional threats from major conventional weapons, as well as from the destabilization, accumulation and illicit sale of small arms and light weapons, and the continued production and use of landmines.”

“Of all these challenges, however, the total elimination of nuclear weapons must remain the top priority,” he said.

On Friday the UN Conference on Disarmament called on 12 holdout member states to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which was negotiated in 1996 so that the treaty could enter into force.

To date, 168 states have signed the treaty and 104 have ratified it, but it will enter into force only when all 44 States deemed to have nuclear potential ratify it. Of these, 12 have still to do so — China, Colombia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, United States and Vietnam.