total cessation of nuclear tests, when time is ripe, will turn out to be the easiest part of all. In saying so, I refer to the encouragement to be taken from the agreements reached by the Soviet Union and the United States on threshold test-ban verification. We do hope and expect that they will continue along the same road and will speedily address the important issue of further limitation of the number and yield of tests. We note the call by the USSR for the next bilateral round to start in September next. There is also the ongoing work of the Group of Scientific Experts. The GSE have indicated to the Conference on Disarmament their desire for proper political impetus and direction. We believe this is indeed opportune, since the occasion to do so presents itself now. The Netherlands has actively contributed to the work of the GSE. It is clear in our view that seismic methods are the corner-stone for effective verification of a future treaty. The experience with GSETT-2 will, in our opinion, be quite telling in this regard. Even with the limited detection capability in the Netherlands we were already able to identify 65 per cent of all underground nuclear explosions in 1989. International exchange of data will lead to substantial detection and identification capabilities. In the CD there are a number of practical and specific steps in this regard that we could take: the President of the Conference could convey to the Chairman of the GSE a message of unconditional support for the work of the GSE and for the ongoing GSETT-2 experiment in particular; the CD could ask the GSE to make an assessment of present and potential seismic detection and identification capabilities. In the first GSE report such an assessment was made, but that is more than 10 years ago; nuclear-weapon States could be called 
**Analysis**
The text appears to be discussing international efforts to limit and verify nuclear tests, with a focus on the detection and identification of seismic activity. It mentions the work of the Group of Scientific Experts and the Conference on Disarmament, suggesting that the topic is related to international diplomacy and cooperation. The text also touches on technical aspects of seismic detection and identification, which may be relevant to the field of science and technology.

**Category**
Science and technology, International trade