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China to back nuclear

treaty Yeltsin

BEIJING: President Jiang Zemin said on Thursday that China would throw its weight behind an international call for a nuclear test ban treaty by the end of this year, Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced.

"We agreed here that China will join a decision at the eight party summit on nuclear safety in Moscow to hold talks and reach an agreement on a complete end to nuclear tests this year," Yeltsin told reporters in Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang quickly moved to back away from that commitment on Beijing's part.

"With regard to details of the talks, I think there is a need to have further study and discussion," Shen told reporters.

The Russian president spoke after a meeting with Jiang, who is also head of the Chinese Communist Party, and after signing a joint communique between the two giant neighbours.

The communique said the two countries welcomed indefinite expansion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"Both sides will make efforts and cooperate with other countries for an early conclusion of CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," the communique said.

Beijing has said repeatedly it was ready to sign a test ban treaty along with the four other nuclear powers -- Russia, the United States, France and Britain -- but only by the end of 1996.

At a summit of leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations in Moscow last week on nuclear safety, Russia for the first time formally backed a global ban on all nuclear tests.

The Russian move lent support to Western partners in talks aimed at completing a test ban treaty later this year.

Beijing has resisted intense pressure to join an international testing moratorium, saying China's 43 tests to date were a fraction of those carried out by the four other nuclear powers.

China is believed to have plans for at least two tests in 1996. It generally conducts the explosions during suitable weather windows in May-June and September-October at its Lop Nor test site in the sparsely-populated northwestern region of Xinjiang.-REuter