Thursday 12 February 2004, 11:14 Makka Time, 8:14 GMT

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog has warned that the spread of
atomic weapons technology could lead to the world's destruction.

Writing in the New York Times on Thursday, Muhammad al-Baradai said
that nuclear technology is widely accessible now through "a
sophisticated worldwide network able to deliver systems for producing
material usable in weapons".

Al-Baradai echoed US President George Bush's call in a speech on
Wednesday for states to tighten up control of their companies' nuclear
exports to proliferators.

Al-Baradai, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
director-general, said the world must act quickly because inaction
would a create a proliferation disaster.

"The supply network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear
weapon expertise and materials.

"Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain access to such materials
and technology, if not actual weapons," he wrote.

"If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction,"
al-Baradai said.

Proliferation

The father of Pakistan's atom bomb, Abd al-Qadir Khan, admitted last
week that he and fellow scientists leaked nuclear secrets.

They are believed to have been part of a global nuclear black market
organised to help countries under embargo such as Iran, North Korea
and Libya skirt international sanctions and obtain nuclear technology
that could be used to make weapons.

The massive illicit network has touched on at least 15 countries
around the world.

Al-Baradai said the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the
global pact aimed at stopping the spread of atomic weapons, needed to
be revisited and toughened to bring it in line with the demands of the
21st century.

He said it should not be possible to withdraw from the NPT, as North
Korea did last year, while the tougher inspections in the NPT
Additional Protocol should be mandatory in all countries.

Currently fewer than 40 of the more than 180 NPT signatories have
approved the protocol.

Export controls

Al-Baradai said that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a 40-nation
group of countries that work together to prevent the export of
peaceful nuclear technology to countries that might want weapons,
needed to be transformed into a binding treaty.

"The current system relies on a gentlemen's agreement that is not only
non-binding, but also limited in its membership: it does not include
many countries with growing industrial capacity," he wrote.

"And even some members fail to control the exports of companies
unaffiliated with government enterprise," he added.

Al-Baradai called for the production of fissile material for weapons
to be halted and enrichment technology restricted.

He said people who assist proliferators should be treated as criminals
and states should eradicate loopholes that enable sensitive exports to
slip past regulators.

Disarmament

He also called on the atomic weapons states who signed the NPT - the
United States, China, Russia, Britain and France - to move towards
disarmament as called for in the pact.

In a clear jab at the US, which plans to forge ahead with research
into the so-called mini nukes, Al-Baradai said the world must drop the
idea that nuclear weapons are fine in the hands of some countries and
bad in the hands of others.

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally
reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction
yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security - and
indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for
their use," he said.
AFP