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Increasing likelihood of terrorist getting hands on N-arms

US secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that too much of the world's atomic material remains vulnerable to theft or diversion.

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Increasing likelihood of terrorist getting hands on N-arms
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Warning that there is an increasing likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons if preventive measures are not taken now, US secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that too much of the world's atomic material remains vulnerable to theft or diversion.

"Recent developments underscore the threat," she wrote in an op-ed published in the latest issue of the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine.

Besides citing the examples of North Korea, Iran and Syria, Clinton said, "Too much of the world's nuclear material remains vulnerable to theft or diversion, even as illicit state and non-state networks engage in sensitive nuclear trade."

"If we do not reverse this trend and strengthen the international non-proliferation regime, we will find ourselves in a world with a steadily growing number of nuclear-armed states, and an increasing likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons," she said.

Observing that no nation is safe from the threat of nuclear proliferation and no country can meet this challenge alone, Clinton said that in the early days of the atomic age, a handful of powerful countries could effectively set non-proliferation strategy.

"But in today's changing world, with information and technology leaping across borders, industrial capacity more widely distributed, and non-state actors wielding increasing influence, it will require unprecedented international cooperation," Clinton said and suggested that the UN atomic watchdog IAEA be given more teeth.

The US, she said, has launched a major diplomatic effort to forge a renewed international consensus on non-proliferation that is based on the shared interest of meeting a common threat and on the requirement that all nations understand and abide by their rights and responsibilities.

"We seek to strengthen each of the three mutually reinforcing pillars of global non-proliferation – preventing spread of nuclear weapons, promoting disarmament and facilitating the peaceful use of nuclear energy. And to those three pillars, we should add a fourth: preventing nuclear terrorism," she wrote.

"The most effective way to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism is to ensure that nuclear materials that can be used to build weapons are well protected against theft or seizure.

"That is why the United States has proposed a plan to secure all vulnerable nuclear material worldwide within four years – a plan that has now won the endorsement of the UN Security Council," Clinton said.

The secretary of State said the US and its international allies will use financial and legal tools to better disrupt illicit proliferation networks, including by tightening controls on trans-shipment, a key source of illicit trade.

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