US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton urged the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to hunt down and prevent attempts by terror groups and rogue states to acquire the weapons, and to clamp down on the trade in missile components.

"The fact that governments which sponsor terrorist groups are also pursuing chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programmes is alarming and cannot be ignored," he said.

"Countries such as North Korea and Iraq must cease their violations of NPT and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to do its work," he added.

"Further, I caution those who think that they can pursue nuclear weapons without detection: the United States and its allies will prove you wrong."

Bolton also indicated that the US was prepared to resort to " controversial challenge inspections", the most severe form of verification allowed by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), in order to counter the spread of chemical warfare.

"The US is alarmed by the continuing spread of dangerous (chemical) technology to countries pursuing illegal programmes," Bolton said.

The CWC bans the production, use or stockpiling of chemical weapons.

"I caution those nations that are violating the CWC: you should not be smug in the assumption that your chemical warfare programme will never be uncovered and exposed to the international community," he added.

The challenge system allows a country to accuse another CWC signatory of developing chemical weapons, triggering a surprise independent on-site inspection, but some states reject the provision as excessive and it has never been used before.

Bolton also voiced concern about the spread of missile technology and called on all countries to control "missile-related transfers".

"We are aware of a long list of missile proliferation activities by enterprises from at least a dozen nations," he told the Conference.

"Most of these transactions are serious and could result in US sanctions. as has been done several times over the past year."

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was renewed indefinitely in 1995, establishes five recognised nuclear weapons powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US -- and restricts other countries to the civilian development of nuclear energy.

It does not include India and Pakistan, which have since declared their nuclear weapons capability, or Israel, which is strongly suspected of having nuclear arms.

All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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