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 19 July 2008 15:50 BST

Blix warns of 'cold peace'

Tuesday, 13 May 2008 12:07
Hans Blix warned nuclear disarmament efforts are "stagnating"
The cold war has been replaced by a "cold peace", nuclear weapons expert Hans Blix believes.

Mr Blix called on great powers to improve relations and reduce the risk of the 27,000 nuclear weapons currently in existence around the world in a speech to the RSA in London last night.

Although the cold war may have ended, Mr Blix believes a new arms race is now underway and that the "space race is a reality that goes on".

Russia is acting logically over the US' installation of a missile capability in eastern Europe, Mr Blix said, while the UK's decision to renew Trident, China's missile development and Iran's enhanced uranium enrichment capability are all threats on the nuclear scale.

"The fear is that a return to traditional balance-of-power politics might prompt traditional responses," he explained.

The 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty was described as being "under some strain" and the defence industry, about which Mr Blix admitted he was cynical, was condemned for making the missile shield a "milk cow that never ends being milked".

The former weapons inspector for Iraq concluded a "stagnation" of nuclear disarmament efforts has taken place since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

One way to counter this trend might be to "strengthen legal barriers against the use of armed force," but Mr Blix said the UN in particular had been undermined by its irrelevance in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

He said the US had "renounced the legal restrictions it had helped formulate in 1945" and finished by dismissing the ousting of Saddam Hussein as a "war of choice, not of necessity".End of story


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