MUNICH, Germany, Feb 13 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned here on Sunday of the danger of a "cascade" of nuclear proliferation unless new steps are taken to prevent it and called for help to stop killings in Darfur.
Annan told a conference of defence ministers and security experts that "the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has helped prevent a cascade of nuclear proliferation.
"But unless new steps are taken now, we might face such a cascade very soon," he said.
Annan said a high-level panel which has proposed far-reaching reforms of the United Nations has also made "many forward-looking recommendations" to beef up the system to prevent states from developing nuclear weapons.
Without making direct reference to the current nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea, Annan said: "Member states must summon the will to act to strengthen the non-proliferation regime."
The UN chief believes that up to 30 countries could seek to develop a nuclear weapons capability.
"Those who have the nuclear weapons are quite well known, we have about seven (or) eight of them," Annan told the BBC in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on Sunday.
"But there are estimates that about 30 countries can have it (and) have the capacity to have it," he said.
At the Munich conference, Annan called on NATO and the European Union to take action in the western Sudanese region of Darfur to end violence between ethnic minority rebels and government-backed forces.
A UN panel found that the civilian population in Darfur "has been brutalized by war crimes, which may well amount to crimes against humanity," Annan said.
"People are dying, every single day, while we fail to protect them. Additional measures are urgently required. Those organizations with real capacity -- and NATO as well as the EU are well represented in this room -- must give serious consideration to what, in practical terms, they can do to help end this tragedy," Annan said.
"Remember this: our current collective shortcomings are measured in lives lost," he added.
Annan saluted the work of the 1,850 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, but said other international bodies must act as quickly as possible in a region where tens of thousands have died and 1.6 million have been displaced.
The UN Security Council is currently considering how to hold those responsible for the killings in Darfur to account for their crimes.
"If perpetrators of mass atrocities are allowed to get away with their crimes, it only emboldens others to do the same," he said.
The killings in Darfur began nearly two years ago when the Sudanese government unleashed Arab militias against an uprising launched by ethnic minority rebels.
Annan said the conflicts in Sudan -- including the north-south conflict which has recently been the subject of a peace accord -- should never have been allowed to develop.
"It would have been far better if the chronic problems of governance that have long plagued Sudan had been addressed earlier," Annan said.
"Our eventual goal must be a world of peaceful and capable states, able to exercise their sovereignty responsibly, and to deal with internal stresses before they erupt in conflict."
Annan called on the world to strengthen collective defences "to give us the best chance of preventing latent threats from becoming actual".
The UN chief said it must be accepted that "when prevention fails, and peaceful means have been exhausted, we may have to consider the use of force".
02/13/2005 13:49 GMT - AFP