OREANDA-NEWS. August 29, 2008. Moscow urges all countries that have not yet joined the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to sign or ratify it, says the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

The Ministry confirms its strong adherence to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and urges all countries that have not yet joined the Treaty to sign and/or ratify it.

The Ministry reports that the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization is planning to conduct an integrated field inspection exercise at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan on Sept 1–26 2008.

This exercise is an important step towards the formation of a unique global system for control over the implementation of the Treaty. This process must be completed before the Treaty takes force. The exercise will help to verify the efficiency of field inspection technology and procedure. Russia takes an active part in the Preparatory Commission’s work to organize the exercise.

The successful conduct of the exercise, along with the positive results of the testing of the International Monitoring System, is supposed to demonstrate the efficiency of the control system and the necessity of enacting the Treaty as soon as possible.