Libya has joined some 100 countries that have ratified the nuclear test ban treaty as it continues to make overtures to the international community only weeks after abandoning efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, a senior official said Wednesday.
"Libya ratified the treaty on Jan. 6 by handing in the instruments of ratification to the UN secretary general in New York," said Wolfgang Hoffmann, executive secretary of the Vienna-based preparatory commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.
"I have the feeling that the Libyans are doing everything they can to come back into the fold of the world community," Hoffmann said.
The 1996 test ban treaty has been signed by 170 states but, now with Libya, has been ratified by 109.
The treaty commits countries who have ratified it to refrain from any kind of nuclear weapons testing.
But the treaty appears likely to collapse as all the countries with nuclear capabilities must ratify it in order for it to come into force. The US has indicated that it has no plans to ratify it.
Hoffmann said Libya would allow a nuclear monitoring station to be built on its territory, at Misratah.
The radiation-measuring station can detect "these little particles that happen when a nuclear or reactor explosion takes place," he said.
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