) - The United Nations remains divided over a proposal for a new international convention against nuclear terrorists. ''The best way to prevent nuclear terrorism is to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely,'' say Angelica Arce de Jeannet of Mexico, taking a passing shot at the world's five major nuclear powers France, Britain, the United States, China and Russia. All have pledged to curb the proliferation of the deadly weapons, but have not agreed to eliminate them completely from their military arsenals. ''As long as there are nuclear weapons, there will be a threat of nuclear terrorism,'' argues Wayne St. John McCook of Jamaica. The question of nuclear terrorism was aired at a week-long meeting of the a U.N. Adhoc Committee - consisting of all 185 member states - which wound up last Friday after discussing a Russian-sponsored, 20-article draft convention against nuclear terrorism. Several delegates wondered whether there really was a need for a new convention, while others argued that acts of nuclear terrorism could be dealt with by a protocol to two existing treaties on terrorism. One of them was the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the other was the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings adopted by the General Assembly last December. Philippe Kirsch of Canada, chairman of the Adhoc Committee, said the possibility of an armed attack on a nuclear installation or the abuse of nuclear materials were issues that deserved to be taken seriously and addressed by the international community. There was general agreement, he said, that any instrument against nuclear terrorism should complement existing international treaties, although it was recognized that some overlap was unavoidable. ''A convention on nuclear terrorism should not undermine international work against terrorism or already existing instruments designed to secure the physical protection of nuclear material,'' he no...
