FRANCE, Britain and the United States signed the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty yesterday, agreeing to ban nuclear weapons from the region in a move hailed as finally ending its use as a nuclear "playground".
In a signing ceremony in the Fijian capital, Suva, representatives of the three nuclear powers put their long sought signatures to the 11 year old treaty, joining other declared nuclear powers Russia and China.
The signing comes two months after France carried out its sixth and final underground nuclear test in French Polynesia. The tests were widely condemned in the South Pacific and harmed French diplomatic links.
Decades ago, Britain and the US carried out weapons tests in the region, home to about 26 million people.
The South Pacific Forum, which represents the region's 16 nations including Australia and New Zealand, said France's commitment to the treaty would help to repair relations and put an end to nuclear tensions in the region.
"It marks the end of a tense and uncertain period when the region was a testing ground, and in certain respects a battle ground, for nuclear testing by the nuclear powers, the forum's chairman and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, said in a speech after the signing ceremony.
"Whilst the region may have appeared as some gigantic empty space to the super powers, it has never been someone else's playground as far as the people of the region are concerned."
The signings, attended by over 100 people including four heads of government from the region, strengthened the prospects for lasting peace in the South Pacific, the prime minister said. "It is especially apt because of the way in which the resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific last year and the extreme anger it aroused, distracted us from our normal plans," he added.
The President of French Polynesia, President Mr Gaston Flosse, who supported the latest tests, and signed the treaty for France.
