LUXEMBOURG (AFP) - The UN atomic agency chief urged major world powers Thursday to help avert a nuclear catastrophe by slashing their arsenals to set an example to countries trying to develop such programs.
"We have to move away from a nuclear catastrophe," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Roughly 27,000 nuclear warheads remain in the arsenals of nine countries decades after the end of the Cold War," he told an international conference in Luxembourg on preventing nuclear catastrophe.
"Virtually all nuclear weapons states are extending and modernizing their nuclear weapons arsenals well into the 21st century," he said. "Many states have therefore started to question the credibility of the weapons states."
He added that "plans to replenish and modernize these weapons creates a pervasive sense of cynicism among many non-nuclear weapons states."
"We must find a way for disarmament to be taken seriously," he said.