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Fears of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction following the September 11 attacks now dominate the disarmament debate and have resulted in a "stalemate", a senior UN official said Monday. The resulting delays on measures to tackle the issue were increasing the risk of extremists getting hold of such arms, UN under-secretary general for Disarmament Affairs Nobuyasu Abe warned. The "horrible devastation" of 9/11 and concerns that next time terrorists may try to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were now behind "almost every discussion concerning WMD and other disarmament issues," Abe said in a speech at the opening of a UN disarmament conference in northern Japan. That focus made the adoption in April by UN Security Council of a resolution urging states to keep WMD from terrorists far from easy, Abe said. "While accepting the need to stop the spread of WMD to terrorists, some member states did not want the emphasis to be placed only on proliferation questions while leaving disarmament questions untouched," he said. "This, in a way, reflects the basic confrontation underlying the current disarmament debates, which are largely to blame for the stalemate surrounding disarmament issues." Abe lamented the failure of a committee to agree on an agenda ahead of a review of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty next year, as well as a Geneva disarmament conference's seven-year inability to agree on a negotiating mandate. "Slow progress in nuclear disarmament should not be used to condone proliferation. Nor should continuing concern about proliferation be used to justify retention of nuclear arsenals," he said. "The longer we wait for progress in WMD disarmament or non-proliferation, the greater the risk of those weapons falling into the hands of terrorists." The 16th annual UN Conference on Disarmament Issues began a four-day meeting in Sapporo Monday, attended by around 80 delegates from 15 countries including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, the United States, Japan and South Korea. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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