VIENNA, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The United Nations says international control of the world's civil nuclear fuel cycle is essential for curbing "well-organized nuclear supply networks."
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Wednesday, "The decades-long nuclear non-proliferation effort is under threat."
Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle was commissioned last June after International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei suggested wide dissemination of the most sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle could be the "Achilles' heel" of the non-proliferation regime.
Such threats come from regional arms races, non-nuclear weapon states in breach of or in non-compliance with safeguards accords, and incomplete application of export controls required by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, it said.
But they also arise "from burgeoning and alarmingly well organized nuclear supply networks, and from the increasing risk of acquisition of nuclear or other radioactive materials by terrorist and other non-state entities," said the report, written by an expert group that included representatives from 26 nations.
