Iraq Aug. 19 became the 179th state to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the treaty organization says.

“We welcome the decision by Iraq to sign the CTBT,” Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said in a statement. “This is particularly significant given the multitude of challenges facing the government of Iraq today: It is a strong political signal for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. My hope is that it will encourage other countries of the region and beyond to follow suit.”

Iraq was one of the few remaining larger countries worldwide not to have signed the CTBT, so the signature is an important milestone for the treaty.

Iraq’s nuclear programs under Saddam Hussein, subsequent international inspection problems and a lack of clarity into nuclear program status were a considered a growing danger and precursor to the 2003 U.S.-led coalition military action.

The total number of signatures in the critical Treaty-defined region of the Middle East and South Asia has now increased from 20 to 21, leaving only 5 non-signatories: Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Among the Arab League, the total number of signatures now stands at 18 out of a total of 22 States.

The CTBT bans all nuclear explosions. A verification regime is being built to monitor compliance with the Treaty. A total of 337 facilities worldwide constituting the International Monitoring System (IMS) are foreseen to monitor the underground, the oceans and the atmosphere for any sign of a nuclear explosion. Of these, 230 facilities are already transmitting data to Vienna. Despite many stations still to be established, the IMS performed better than foreseen by the Treaty negotiators when North Korea announced a nuclear test on Oct. 9, 2006.

Toth said as a CBTBP member, Iraq will participate in the organization’s decision-making bodies, gain access to the raw and analyzed IMS data, which can also be used for civil and scientific applications, such as for disaster mitigation, and Iraqi citizens will now be able to work at the CTBTO.

Adherence to the CTBT is now almost universal. While 179 states have signed the treaty, it must be signed and ratified by the 44 states listed in the CBTB Annex 2–states which participated in the treaty’s negotiations in 1996 and possessed nuclear power or research reactors at the time. Thirty-five of these states have ratified, including the three nuclear weapon States: France, Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom. The nine remaining states are: the United States, China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan.