WASHINGTON, May 26: The United States and other major powers who insist on retaining atomic arsenals set an example that encourages others to follow suit and the world may soon confront a vast expansion in nuclear-armed nations, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Thursday.

Mohammed ElBaradei, delivering the commencement address at a prestigious foreign policy school, said it was becoming harder to control the spread of nuclear weapons, despite the international community’s best efforts.

The speech by the Nobel Peace Prize winner is likely to have particular resonance at a time when the United States and other major powers are working to persuade Iran to abandon nuclear activities the West says are aimed at building weapons and Tehran says are only for producing energy.

“Nukes breed nukes. As long as some nations continue to insist that nuclear weapons are essential to their security, other nations will want them. There is no way around this simple truth,” Mr ElBaradei told the Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

“When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are reaching a fork in the road. Either we must begin moving away from a security system based on nuclear weapons or we should resign ourselves to President (John F.) Kennedy’s 1960s prediction of a world with 20 to 30 nuclear weapon states,” he said.

Mr ElBaradei said that as recently as a few decades ago, controls on nuclear technology and nuclear material was a sensible strategy.

But ‘security is no longer as simple as building a wall’ and controls aimed at blocking nuclear technology transfers are ‘no longer enough’ in a world in which advanced communications have made it easy to share knowledge, he said.—Reuters