NEW DELHI, Feb 5: Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday described the prospect of terrorists seizing nuclear weapons as a very real threat but also cautioned against the chances of other states than those that have them of acquiring their own arsenal.

The veiled reference to Pakistan and Iran as potential problem areas came at a seminar on Asian security, where the foreign minister also praised India’s own record of exercising nuclear prudence.

“A principal cause of concern in recent years has been the threat of nuclear proliferation,” he said. “This is not limited only to new states acquiring nuclear weapons capability. It also extends to the very real threat of terrorist groups laying their hands on nuclear material and even fully assembled nuclear weapons.”

These two security challenges were interlinked as both were products of the demand-supply dynamic. On the supply side, the proliferation problem was a product of two factors, namely the inability of states to sufficiently safeguard their nuclear material, technology and facilities against attempts to procure nuclear material.

The second factor was “deliberate and callous proliferation by states including state failure to exercise adequate control over personnel engaged in nuclear programmes”.

It was well known, Mr Mukherjee said, “how transfer of uranium enrichment technology, equipment and even weapon design has taken place clandestinely and flagrantly in our region. Even more alarming is the interest shown by radical terrorist groups in acquiring nuclear material and technology and the linkages that they had forged with a few nuclear scientists.”

India on the other hand had harmonised its export control lists with those prescribed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime. “These measures also fulfil the obligations prescribed by UN Security Council Resolution 1540, which calls upon states to refrain from supporting non-state actors in their quest for weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems…We do not wish to see the emergence of additional nuclear weapon states, for it will only further endanger international security.”

Asia has the largest number of terrorist groups in the world. India alone has been facing this curse since the 1980s, “first in Punjab, then in Jammu and Kashmir, and now in other parts of the country as well.