The Press Trust of India news agency quoted Singh as saying that the abolition of nuclear weapons, through "a multilaterally agreed, legally-binding undertaking", had acquired a pressing imperative.

"It has taken on a new urgency with the current rise of non-state actors as powerful military threats," Singh said.

"Availability of arms and weapons in the hands of terrorists and insurgents who operate impervious to the law and outside its realm is a major challenge to the maintenance of peace in the world."

Singh said the world had seen the "devastating destructive force of nuclear weapons, the use of which it would not like to see again".

"This is the will of the peoples of the world; this is the imperative need. Yet, over 30,000 nuclear weapons, sufficient to annihilate the world many times over, exist."

"There is only one solution -- abolish them entirely once and for all and for ever."

India shocked the world in May 1998 when it conducted a series of nuclear weapons tests.

Despite intense international pressure, Pakistan followed suit, raising the terrifying prospect of a nuclear war between the arch-rivals.

While refusing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), India has declared a voluntary moratorium on further nuclear testing.

Russia signed the CTBT, aimed at banning all nuclear tests worldwide, in September 1996, along with the four other declared nuclear powers -- Britain, China, France and the United States.

The Russian parliament ratified it in May last year but the United States and China have not yet done so.

Both India and Pakistan claim to have no desire for war and have all but ruled out the possibility of any kind of nuclear exchange.

However, border tensions between the arch-nuclear rivals remain high with frequent exchanges of fire that carry the threat of escalating into full-scale conflict.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from British rule in 1947.

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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