Nuclear arms race continues, Blix warns Oireachtas

HANS BLIX, the former head of the UN’s WMD inspectorate, told an Oireachtas committee yesterday that efforts at nuclear disarmament had faced serious setbacks in the past decade.

In a presentation to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Dr Blix, who is now chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, did not confine his criticism to states like North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and India.

He also criticised the five major powers who hold nuclear arms — the US, Britain, China, Russia and France — for not honouring commitments to ban testing and to reduce or stop production of enriched uranium and plutonium.