UNITED NATIONS, August 29. /TASS/. Russia is seriously worried over the fact that the United States is dodging signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), Dmitry Glukhov of Russia’s mission to the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"The beginning of the CTBT signing on September 24, 1996 was seen as a spark of hope that the era of nuclear tests is coming to an end. But, regrettably, more than a quarter of century after that, the treaty, which was called to put an end to all types of nuclear tests, has not come into force because eight states from Annex 2 to the treaty have not ratified it. We are especially concerned over this fact," he said at a meeting of the UN General Assembly on the occasion of International Day Against Nuclear Tests.

"Of special concern is the fact that the United States, the only country that used nuclear weapons and the one holding the lead in terms of the number of nuclear tests, has been keeping open the issue of resuming tests and refraining from ratifying the treaty for this reason for years," he noted, adding that in such a situation Russia doesn’t recognize "Washington’s right to throw any accusations" against Russia.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly in 1996. It bans nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. The treaty has been ratified by 178 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. However, it has not come into forces. To come into effect it needs to be ratified by 44 countries, which either possess nuclear weapons or have potential capacities to obtain them (they are listed in the Annex; the list was drawn on the basis of data from the International Atomic Energy Agency). Eight countries from this list are outside the treaty: India, North Korea, and Pakistan had not signed the treaty; Egypt, Israel, Iran, China, and the United States signed but not ratified it.