UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4: United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called upon the international community to speed up efforts to contain and reverse the spread of nuclear weapons in the wake of the test carried out by North Korea (DPRK) last month and Tehran’s decision to go ahead with its uranium enrichment programme.

Mr Annan urged participants at an international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation seminar to find bold responses to recent setbacks in the field.

“A world without weapons of mass destruction remains a distant dream,” Mr Annan said in a message to the seminar, Strengthening Global Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, in Bali, Indonesia. “Yet, even the more immediate aims of nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation have suffered recent setbacks.”

He added that governments failed twice last year to strengthen the foundations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in May at the NPT Review Conference and again at the UN World Summit in September.

“Governments could have agreed on energetic steps to meet disarmament requirements and strengthen the non-proliferation regime,” he said.