US official backs Trumps nuclear test remarks as questions raised about Russia, China

In the wake of U.S.President Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that the U.S.

would resume nuclear testing, a U.S.government representative defended the stance at a global nuclear arms control meeting and pointed to nuclear provocations from Russia, China, and North Korea.U.S.

Chargé d’Affaires to the International Organizations in Vienna Howard Solomon made the previously unpublished comments, which were obtained by The Associated Press, at the Preparatory Commission of the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization on Nov.10.“As President Trump indicated, the United States will begin testing activities on an equal basis with other nuclear-armed states.

This process will begin immediately and proceed in a manner fully consistent with our commitment to transparency and national security,” Solomon said.Solomon provided further explanation by noting, “For any who question this decision, context is important.Since 2019, including in this forum, the United States has raised concerns that Russia and China have not adhered to the zero-yield nuclear test moratorium,” he said, adding that the concerns “remain valid.”Solomon’s comment referred to so-called supercritical nuclear test explosions banned under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, known as CTBT, where fissile material is compressed to start a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction that creates an explosion.The explosive tests produce an amount of energy released, referred to as nuclear yield, which defines a weapon’s destructive power.

The treaty bans any nuclear explosion with a yield, even a very small one, following a zero-yield standard.“Our concerns with Russia and China are in addition to the activities of North Korea, which has conducted six nuclear explosive tests this century,” Solomon said.The global monitoring network established alongside the treaty in 1996 to register nuclear tests worldwide has detected all of North Korea’s six nucl...