text: During the 1960s we heard repeated promises by the three depositary States of the partial test-ban Treaty, promises concerning the prompt cessation of all such tests. That has been the basic working premise for the consideration of that item here and in the General Assembly. That also formed part of the balance in the obligations assumed in the NPT by the non-nuclear-weapon States on the one hand, and the nuclear-weapon States on the other. The NPT does not speak sole of horizontal non-proliferation; the measures it provides for in order to stem vertical proliferation are also clear. And a comprehensive nuclear test ban is the key measure in this regard. Neither the Moscow Treaty nor the NPT speak of a partial ban on underground nuclear tests. Nor do they speak of limiting such tests to a certain threshold, still less of a 150-kiloton threshold or limit or of "reducing" such tests "to a minimum". The threshold agreed bilaterally by the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1974 Treaty is equivalent to over 10 times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. Some threshold! With regard to the number of tests, the situation is equally disheartening. Between 1945 and August 1963, when the Moscow Treaty was signed, the annual average of nuclear tests conducted by the two super-Powers was some 28 tests per year. Between August 1963 and 1974, when the threshold test-ban Treaty was signed, the average was about 48. Between 1975 and 1988 the average was around 36 tests per year. In short, as the heads of State or Government associated with the Six-Nation Initiative on peace and disarmament stated in their Stockholm Declaration of 21 January 1988, "any agreement that leaves room for continued testing would not be acceptable" (A/43/125 - S/19478, annex).
analysis: The text appears to be discussing the topic of nuclear testing and disarmament, with a focus on the partial test-ban Treaty, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the threshold test-ban Treaty. It seems to be a political or diplomatic text, as it references agreements and treaties, and quotes statements from heads of state or government.