FEAR OF international terrorism has distracted from the "very great" threat of nuclear weapons, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said yesterday.
Addressing a conference of nuclear disarmament experts at Dublin Castle, Mr Ahern said that the world's attention had been distracted by other crises. "In the past number of years, and in the aftermath of the cold war, such threats as international terrorism and climate change have often been seen as demanding more urgent attention than nuclear weapons, but the risks indeed remain very great," Mr Ahern told the conference of the Middle Powers Initiative.
The initiative is an international body opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Mr Ahern said the debate about nuclear weapons was returning to the forefront. "I therefore welcome the return over the past year of serious debate on nuclear disarmament, particularly in the nuclear weapons states." Mr Ahern criticised the recent lack of action on nuclear disarmament. In 2000, he said, nuclear weapons states agreed to 13 steps to begin cutting their arsenals.
"It is a matter of great concern and disappointment that the intervening years have seen little advance in the implementation of these 13 steps and indeed that some of the nuclear weapon states have called this commitment into question."