Cuba to Sign Nuclear Treaties

Cuba will sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) after 34 years of refusal. That leaves only three countries—India, Israel, and Pakistan—all of which are believed to have substantial nuclear weapon programs, outside the treaty.

Cuba’s willingness to sign was announced in September by Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Roque said that Cuba had not signed the NPT before because the major nuclear powers—China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US—had not attempted to meet their disarmament commitments under the treaty. Cuba’s decision, says Roque, was motivated by “its commitment to an effective disarmament process that guarantees world peace.” The surprise announcement was welcomed by the international community. “With Cuba’s intention to become party to the NPT, we have come a step closer to a universal nuclear non-proliferation regime,” says Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Roque also announced that Cuba will ratify the 1967 Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, also known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which prohibits signatories from developing and acquiring nuclear weapons and establishes a nuclear-weapon–free zone in the two regions. Cuba, which signed the treaty in 1995, is the last country in the Caribbean to ratify it.