IF THE United States, Russia or any other nation goes ahead with a nuclear weapons test, others will follow, the head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation has warned.

“That is a spiral that we do not want to see start, because it may never be able to be stopped,” Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the organisation, told United Nations correspondents on Wednesday night.

Late last year, both the US and Russia, which have the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, threatened to resume nuclear testing, setting off global alarm bells.

Mr Floyd said that when the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty opened for signatures 30 years ago, over 2,000 nuclear tests had taken place, but since then there have been less than a dozen, including six by North Korea.

His warning came as the UN began a review this week of a separate treaty meant to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The test ban treaty was adopted in 1996 but has not entered into force because it must be ratified by 44 specific countries, nine of which have not yet done so.

The US, China, Iran, Egypt and Israel have signed but not ratified the treaty, while India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified. Russia signed and ratified, but it revoked its ratification in 2023.

Mr Floyd said a way needed to be found for China, Russia and the US to ratify the treaty together, which he said would “certainly be a powerful step forward.”

China and Russia have said they adhere to a nuclear testing moratorium, but the US State Department has publicly claimed since 2019 to be concerned about the activities of both countries.

At the end of last year, Mr Trump accused Russia and China of conducting tests and said he had instructed the US Defence Department to start testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in response that Russia would only resume nuclear tests if Washington did so first.