US politicians are showing growing interest in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests, the head of the agency set up to monitor the ban said on Thursday, but it is uncertain when or whether lawmakers will adopt a pact that they rejected in 1999. Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), said approval by the US Senate would be a “game changer” for the landmark treaty that was negotiated in the mid-1990s but has yet to take effect. “I welcome increased interest in what we are doing,” Toth told Reuters in an interview, adding this came from both Democrats and Republicans in the United States. “In the last six-eight months, each three weeks on average, we had some sort of visit from the United States. We had nearly 10 percent of the US senators in different delegations visiting us.” There is widespread international support for the test ban treaty, which has been ratified by about 155 states, but it cannot come into effect because some nuclear powers like the United States and China have not yet done so.
