TEST-BAN-TREATY 0RGANIZATION ESTABLISHED IN VIENNA
Press Release
DCF/294
TEST-BAN-TREATY 0RGANIZATION ESTABLISHED IN VIENNA
19970319 (Reproduced as received.)VIENNA, 18 March (UN Information Service) -- With the signing of a headquarters agreement here today, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has begun its task of establishing an unprecedented global verification regime to monitor compliance with the Treaty, which was adopted by the General Assembly last September.
At a press conference following the signing ceremony, Wolfgang Hoffmann, Executive Secretary of the new Commission, said that to bridge the period until entry into force of the Treaty, States signatories have set up a Preparatory Commission to arrange for a monitoring system that will include a network of 321 seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide stations. Known as the International Monitoring System (IMS), it is intended to verify that no nuclear tests are being conducted in the atmosphere, under ground and under water.
The stations, he explained, will send data to the International Data Centre (IDC) being constructed in Vienna, where the readings will be analysed. On-site inspections are also anticipated.
In its first operational year, the CTBTO will have a staff of about 100 persons from 60 countries.
Representing Austria as the host country of the new Organization, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the location of the CTBTO in the Vienna International Centre will strengthen the position of Vienna as seat of international organizations. With Vienna already hosting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the city was now the world centre of both non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.
She said a treaty conference in 1999 will enable the provisional coming into force of the CTBT even if not all 44 States with nuclear capabilities and "threshold States" have become parties to it.
Prior to his selection as Executive Secretary, Mr. Hoffmann headed the German delegation to the Conference on Disarmament. The new organization is not part of the United Nations; it is financed by its signatory States with a budget this year of $27.4 million.
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