NATO Rejects New UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons, Defends Deterrent On 12/15/20 at 12:39 PM EST NATO has said it must remain a nuclear-armed alliance and has opposed a United Nations treaty coming into effect next month that aims to eliminate nuclear weapons. The Treaty of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) also known as the Ban Treaty, was approved by 122 countries in July 2017 and starts from January 22 2021 but no nuclear-armed state has backed it. Countries that have ratified it are prohibited from developing and testing nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. But the alliance says the agreement would weaken the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) struck five decades ago, which it considers to be the benchmark global framework on nuclear arms control.