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UN / ZERBO
STORY: UN / ZERBO
TRT: 2.08
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 4 SEPTEMBER 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
4 SEPTEMBER 2013, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
2. Wide shot, Lassina Zerbo and Spokesperson Farham Haq at the dais
3. Pan left, cameras
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO:
“We are indeed working hard, day in and day out, to try and secure ratification by building the framework that will give the trust necessary for those countries to understand that the ratification of this treaty is part of their own national security as well as the international peace and security. This is what we are trying to do, and this is what we will continue doing until this treaty is into force.”
5. Med shot, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO:
“We have been working with US experts from the Air Force technical centre, people from the Department of Energy, people from the State Department, to create the framework for pushing those conditions that led no to ratify the CTBT in 99 to overcome them, and the one way to overcome them is to show that the treaty is ratifiable.”
7. Med shot, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO:
“Our system is there to detect any meaningful explosion that could be relevant for the development of weapons of mass destruction. Talking about those, it is today difficult, if not impossible to do a test that would go undetected. We provide to our member states, indeed, all the necessary framework, technical framework, for them to be able to verify themselves that no nuclear test explosion goes undetected.”
9. Med shot, journalists
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO:
“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that we would not expect ratification from any region or any country, otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair, because I think we have to have a dream and our dream is to get this Treaty into force and our dream is part of the trust that we are putting in those countries to change the current setting to provide us the necessary means for the entry into force of this Treaty.”
11. Med shot, photographer
12. Wide shot, end of press conference
The new Head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said today that entry into force of the Treaty is part of member states’ “own national security as well as the international peace and security.”
Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO, said the organization is “working hard, day in and day out, to try and secure ratification” from those countries that have not yet signed or ratified the Treaty.
India, North Korea and Pakistan have not yet signed nor ratified the Treaty, while China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed but have not yet ratified it.
Zerbo said the CTBTO has been working closely with the United States “to create the framework for pushing those conditions that led no to ratify the CTBT in 99 to overcome them, and the one way to overcome them is to show that the treaty is ratifiable.”
The United States signed the Treaty on 24 September 1996, but the US Senate refused to ratify it on 13 October, 1999.
The Executive Secretary stressed that the current system is able to detect “any meaningful explosion that could be relevant for the development of weapons of mass destruction.”
He said the CTBTO provides member states “all the necessary framework, technical framework, for them to be able to verify themselves that no nuclear test explosion goes undetected.”
The CTBT International Monitoring System, a key component of the Treaty, is currently over 80 percent completed. The system, composed of monitoring stations around the globe, provides for a global verification regime to monitor all States Parties’ compliance with the Treaty’s provisions.
Asked about the possibility of more countries signing or ratifying the Treaty in the near future, Zerbo said “I think we have to have a dream and our dream is to get this Treaty into force and our dream is part of the trust that we are putting in those countries to change the current setting to provide us the necessary means for the entry into force of this Treaty.”
The eighth Article XIV conference, designed to facilitate the entry into force of the Treaty, will take place on 27 September 2013 at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
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