Armenian President at the CTBTO

President Serzh Sargsyan of the Republic of Armenia met with CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo at the CTBTO headquarters in Vienna, Austria, today, 12 June 2014. “Armenia appreciates the important work that the CTBTO does,” the President said, “We are ready to further develop our cooperation and Armenia stands ready to assist in any way possible.”
The President also highlighted Armenia’s involvement in and support for the International Monitoring System (IMS), and welcomed the modernization at the  auxiliary seismic station hosted by Armenia at Garni. The station forms part of a global network of 337 IMS facilities to verify compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).  The network is nearly 90% complete and successfully detected the nuclear tests announced by North Korea in 2006, 2009 and 2013.    
The President was also given a tour of the control room of the International Data Centre (IDC) by the Executive Secretary and the Director of the International Data Centre, Randy Bell.
The global monitoring facilities transmit data via satellite to the IDC in Vienna, where the data are used to detect, locate and characterize events. The data are provided in both raw and analysed form to Member States for final analysis in helping to detect any nuclear explosion. Armenia signed the CTBT on 1 October 1996 and ratified it on 12 July 2006. 

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan (left) with CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo

International Data Centre (IDC) Director Randy Bell (left) explains how the IDC control room operates