Russian, US FMs Warn
Massive deaths if WMD falls into wrong hands
AFP, Moscow
Russia and the United States warned of apocalyptic consequences yesterday if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) fall into the wrong hands and encouraged more countries to join an anti-proliferation initiative in a joint article published in the Russian daily Izvestia. "Terrorists obtaining nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapons would mean only one thing: mass death and destruction far exceeding what happened in the US on September 11," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in the article. Lavrov and Rice welcomed their two countries' cooperation in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) that aims to clamp down on the smuggling of materials used in WMD and encouraged more countries to join. "The more participants there are, the better, and their number is constantly rising," the foreign policy chiefs said, adding that over 60 members of PSI currently conduct anti-proliferation exercises and share information against WMD smuggling. Lavrov and Rice cited the case of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear scientist who leaked nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya as an example of the lengths that criminals will go to obtain WMD.
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