It would be, in fact, very ominous if Iraq were to be able to get weapon-usable material, hydro-plutonium or highly enriched uranium from abroad.
Mohamed ElbaradeiRead
I argue that for every country to have an independent fuel cycle is the wrong way to go. Because any country which has a complete fuel cycle is a latent nuclear weapons country, in the sense that it is not far from making a nuclear weapon.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Having an independent fuel cycle can lead countries close to developing nuclear weapons.
In this quote, Mohamed Elbaradei emphasizes the dangers of each country maintaining its own independent nuclear fuel cycle. He argues that such capability could enable nations to quickly transition to nuclear weapons if they choose to, posing a significant threat to global security and stability.
Themes
NuclearFuel CycleWeaponsSecurityCountries
In practice
Example use cases
During a conference on disarmament, one could cite this quote to advocate for international cooperation on nuclear energy.
More from Mohamed Elbaradei
All quotes →Countries that perceive themselves to be vulnerable can be expected to try to redress that vulnerability - and in some cases, they will pursue clandestine weapons programs.
Mohamed ElbaradeiRead
Egypt needs to catch up with the rest of the world. We need to be free, democratic, and - society where people have the right to live in freedom and dignity.
Mohamed ElbaradeiRead
I couldn't have imagined that I would live long enough to see Egypt emancipated from decades of repression.
Mohamed ElbaradeiRead
Psychology is as important as substance. If you treat people with respect, they will go out of their way to accommodate you. If you treat them in a patronizing way, they will go out of their way to make your life difficult.
Mohamed ElbaradeiRead
The gravest threat faced by the world is of an extremist group getting hold of nuclear weapons or materials.
Mohamed ElbaradeiRead
Similar quotes
The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has.
Isaac AsimovRead
By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang.
Carl SaganRead
When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves.
John PolanyiRead
Not only is science corrosive to religion, but religion is corrosive to science. It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial non-explanations and blinds them to the wonderful real explanations that we have within our grasp.
Richard DawkinsRead
...great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune.
Christiaan HuygensRead
Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton's time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads.
Charles Sanders PeirceRead