Kenya fifth State signatory to have signed Facility Agreement

On Friday, 29 October 1999, a Facility Agreement was signed between the Permanent Representative of Kenya, Ambassador Kipkorir Aly Azad Rana, and the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom), Wolfgang Hoffmann. The ceremony took place at the headquarters of CTBTO PrepCom in Vienna. Kenya is the fifth State signatory, after Ukraine, to have signed such an agreement. The purpose of the Facility Agreement is to grant the necessary legal authority to the CTBTO PrepCom to undertake work on Kenyan territory to establish or upgrade the primary seismological station and infrasound station that Kenya is hosting to implement the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The CTBT, signed by Kenya on 14 November 1996, recognizes that halting all nuclear-weapon-test explosions is an effective measure of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. It is effective because it limits the development and improvement of nuclear weapons. Under the Treaty´s global verification regime to monitor compliance, a network of 321 monitoring stations - spanning some 90 countries - will be able to record data generated by nuclear explosions and other sources in the atmosphere, under water or underground. The network includes 50 primary and 120 auxiliary seismic stations from which data can be used to distinguish between nuclear explosions and the thousands of earth tremors registered annually by the seismic system. It also includes 80 radionuclide stations to sample radioactive debris released during a nuclear explosion and, in addition, 16 laboratories to assist in the analysis of samples. Furthermore, 60 infrasound and 11 hydroacoustic stations will be able to record acoustic signals in the atmosphere or under water that may have come from a nuclear explosion. The monitoring stations will transmit, via satellite, in near real time the data to the International Data Centre (IDC) within CTBTO PrepCom in Vienna, where the data will be used to detect, locate and characterize events. These data and IDC products will be made available to the States signatories for final analysis.

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Annika Thunborg, Chief, Public Information  
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