MALAYSIA CAN PROVIDE GUIDANCE AT NUCLEAR SUMMIT, SAYS EXPERT

By Ahmad Zukiman Zain

KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 (Bernama) -– Being a traditionally strong voice,
Malaysia can provide a constructive role at the Nuclear Security Summit in
Washington this week, says an international expert on nuclear non-proliferation
and disarmament.

Former Australian foreign minister Prof Gareth Evans, who co-chairs the
International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND),
said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s presence at the summit was
important as a demonstration of Malaysia’s commitment.

“Malaysia has been traditionally a very important voice for disarmament,
non-proliferation (of nuclear weapons)...very powerful, very articulate voice
within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM),” he told Bernama in an interview here.

He said it was crucial that Malaysia play a positive role as “there are a
number of issues on which some Non-Aligned Movement countries are going to be
very difficult”.

“What we have to ensure is, we get the best possible results on disarmament,
best possible results on moving ahead on the Middle-East Nuclear Weapons Free
Zone which is another big issue at the conference and the strengthening of the
non-proliferation treaty regime,” said Evans, who will be at the summit as part
of the Australian delegation.

“People will be looking to Malaysia for guidance on these issues and it’s
important for Malaysia to play that constructive role.

“I know it’s not a big issue in the Malaysian public consciousness at the
moment, but the point is, Malaysia has a well-known voice and well-established
track record,” he said.

He said, if the summit could get a good level of attendance and produced a
good set of outcome, it would be a good momentum towards the goal of a world
completely free of nuclear weapons.

Evans was in Malaysia last week as part of his visit to the
Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) party countries to promote the work of the ICNND
and advocate a practical agenda for global policy makers in eliminating nuclear
threats.

In its 230-page report, the commission had recommended that nuclear
disarmament should be pursued as a step-by-step process with “minimisation” to
be achieved, no later than 2025 and “elimination” as soon as possible,
thereafter.


Apart from his role in the commission, Evans is currently President Emeritus
of the International Crisis Group, the Chancellor of Australian National
University and Honorary Professional Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Asked why the public should be more concerned of the issue, he said “because
there is a very real danger of the world blowing itself up”.

“There are 23,000 nuclear warheads out there at the moment, of which 2,000
are on high alert even 20 years after the Cold War,” he noted.

The number of nuclear warheads could translate into “150,000 Hiroshima-size
bombs, capable of destroying the world, many times over”, he cautioned.

“We know now, how often that even with the supposedly sophisticated command
and control system, often we came close to catastrophic danger, either through
human or machine error or just sheer stupidity, miscalculation.


"I’ve got plenty of such stories,” said Evans, who was Australian foreign
minister from 1988 to 1996.

He said the world was facing an even bigger danger than it was during the
Cold War days because more nuclear states were coming into the game with less
sophisticated control and command system.

It was also faced with “unknown realities” of terrorists willing to cause
maximum destruction if they could get their hands on the weapons.

“What we are saying, in terms of global issue, this one is right up there
alongside climate change because the world could be destroyed by something going
wrong,” he said.

-- BERNAMA