Official: 129 countries set to approve nuclear ban treaty

The president of the UN 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 today although all nuclear-armed nations are boycotting the effort.

Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters yesterday 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." 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.