UNITED NATIONS – The president of the U.N. conference drafting what could be the first treaty to ban nuclear weapons says 129 countries have agreed on the text, which is expected to be formally adopted Friday although all nuclear-armed nations are boycotting the effort.
Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told reporters Thursday that “this will be a historic moment and it will be the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to be concluded in more than 20 years.”
Ambassador Whyte has opened the plenary session, on the third last day of the #nuclearban negotiations. pic.twitter.com/DLMcUqyM7q
— ICAN (@nuclearban) 5 de julio de 2017
She said that following Wednesday’s final review of the text, she is “convinced that we have achieved a general agreement on a robust and comprehensive prohibition on nuclear weapons.”
Last December, U.N. member states overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons.