NEW YORK, Oct 17: Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev on Sunday chided the five original nuclear powers for not doing enough to eliminate nukes and prevent other nations from acquiring them.

He was referring to the United States, France, Russia, Britain and China, which are also the permanent members of UN Security Council.

As a consequence, the last Soviet leader noted, India, Pakistan, Israel and most recently North Korea have joined the club. “This is not good that this is happening,” Gorbachev said at the screening of a CNN television series on the Cold War at the Museum of Television & Radio.

A news agency report said that Mr Gorbachev was speaking to reporters at the museum through an interpreter.

If the five undermine the treaty, he said, more than 30 countries capable of producing the weapons will say that if the five “are preserving and modernizing their nuclear weapons, why should we be hostages to this situation?”