The United States and other major
powers who insist on retaining atomic arsenals set an example
that encourages others to follow suit and the world may soon
confront a vast expansion in nuclear-armed nations, the head of
the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday.
Mohamed ElBaradei , director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), delivers the commencement address at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University, Thursday, May 25, 2006 in Washington. (AP Photo/Chris Greenberg)
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Mohammed ElBaradei, delivering the commencement address at
a prestigious foreign policy school, said it is becoming harder
to control the spread of nuclear weapons, despite the
international community's best efforts.
The speech by the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner is likely
to have particular resonance at a time when the United States
and other major powers are working to persuade Iran to abandon
nuclear activities the West says are aimed at building weapons
and Tehran says are only for producing energy.
"Nukes breed nukes. As long as some nations continue to
insist that nuclear weapons are essential to their security,
other nations will want them. There is no way around this
simple truth," ElBaradei told the Paul H. Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
"When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are reaching a fork
in the road. Either we must begin moving away from a security
system based on nuclear weapons or we should resign ourselves
to President (John F.) Kennedy's 1960s prediction of a world
with 20 to 30 nuclear weapons states," he said.
ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy
Agency, said that as recently as a few decades ago, controls on
nuclear technology and nuclear material was a sensible strategy
for preventing nuclear proliferation.
But "security is no longer as simple as building a wall"
and controls aimed at blocking nuclear technology transfers are
"no longer enough" in a world in which advanced communications
have made it easy to share knowledge, he said.
Eventually, efforts to control the spread of such weapons
"will only be delaying the inevitable," he predicted.
ElBaradei challenged the graduates to help develop an
"alternative system of collective security ... that eliminates
the need for nuclear deterrence."
"Only when nuclear weapons states move away from depending
on these weapons for their security will the threat of nuclear
proliferation by other countries be meaningfully reduced," he
said.
He said he did not know what that new security system
should look like but suggested that, if the world intensified
its efforts to raise living standards in undeveloped countries,
"the likelihood of conflict will immediately begin to drop."
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited
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