UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned Wednesday that only co-ordinated international efforts could offer the world protection from the "horrifying" prospect of a nuclear terrorist attack. ElBaradei told a London conference on nuclear security organised by his International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that a series of attacks since September 11, 2001 had made it an urgent task to improve international co-ordination on nuclear issues.
"It has become obvious that our work to strengthen nuclear security is both vital and urgent - and that we must not wait for a 'watershed' nuclear security event to provide the needed security upgrades," he said.
"The prospect of one single case of nuclear terrorism is absolutely horrifying," he told journalists at a later briefing. The IAEA director general said he did not believe a nuclear attack was inevitable but warned that it was "absolutely currently possible".
The world's four greatest nuclear security risks, he said, were: the theft of a nuclear weapon; the acquisition of nuclear materials for bomb-making purposes; the use of radioactive materials, like "dirty bombs"; and radioactivity hazards caused by an attack on nuclear facilities or transport. ElBaradei suggested that sometimes bilateral and multilateral talks were more efficient than the IAEA in addressing certain urgent nuclear crises, notably over suspected illicit programs in North Korea and Iran.
The three-day UN conference, attended by 320 participants from 76 countries, opened with ElBaradei's keynote address and speeches by leading nuclear experts including Sam Nunn, the former US senator now heading up the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Annalisa Gianella, the special representative on weapons of mass destruction to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and British junior foreign minister Baroness Elizabeth Symons.
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