On March 20, Angola ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), bringing the total number of states who have ratified the treaty to 164.
Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Lassina Zerbo remarked of the ratification, “I congratulate Angola on its ratification of the CTBT. It is a powerful message of peace to Africa and to the world. This development is an unequivocal reminder of Angola’s commitment towards creating an Africa free of nuclear weapons, as an essential component of a nuclear-weapons-free world.”
The United States and seven more states listed in Annex II of the treaty must ratify the before the treaty can fully enter into force: China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan.
U.S. officials have repeatedly asserted, most recently at the March 23 and 24 Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference, that the remaining countries who have yet ratified should not wait for the United States to do so before they submit their own instruments of ratification. The last Annex II state to ratify the CTBT was Indonesia, on Feb. 6, 2012.