United Nations, Oct 24: Key Security Council nations met for the first time to discuss a new resolution aimed at preventing terrorists from getting nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and missile technology, UN diplomats said. Russia has drafted a proposal, and the United States is working on one.
Diplomats said the five veto-wielding council members, the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, met yesterday to discuss the Russian text and US ideas. Despite disagreements over Iraq, the need to control unconventional weapons was one issue that US President George W. Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and UN secretary-general Kofi Annan agreed on at the General Assembly's ministerial meeting last month.
If terrorists were to obtain weapons of mass destruction, Bush warned, it would "bring sudden disaster and suffering on a scale we can scarcely imagine". Declaring that "nations of the world must have the wisdom and the will to stop grave threats before they arrive," he called on the Security Council to adopt a new anti-proliferation resolution. Bureau Report