GEORGE NEGUS: Your Majesty, thanks very much for joining us. Do you think that President Obama's plans to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons is going to solve the problem when, these days, we're increasingly worried about an invisible enemy, as opposed to an enemy we can see in the old Cold War days?

QUEEN NOOR, CO-FOUNDER, GLOBAL ZERO: : Well, that's precisely why the nuclear security summit is an important step towards 'global zero', because there is so much nuclear material out there today - highly enriched uranium and plutonium, perhaps enough to make 200,000 bombs - and that is a source of increasing concern. Much of that material is located in unstable regions or unsecured and unstable countries. So, yes, this summit was, I think, an important step, and we have to continue to build on it.

GEORGE NEGUS: It's interesting to hear that you should acknowledge that there's clearly a long way to go, but do you agree with President Obama when he says it's a cruel irony of history that the world today is in more danger of nuclear attack than ever before?

QUEEN NOOR: Yes, and I think there are many experts who say, in fact, the most powerful nations on earth are more vulnerable today than the weaker nations because they're the targets of so many of these groups that are trying to steal, to buy, to build nuclear weapons, and we know this has been going on for some time. I sat in on the UN Security Council meeting that President Obama chaired last fall - the first one on this subject - and, at that meeting, Mohammed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the IAEA, said that there had been 200 cases of missing nuclear materials in the year before alone, and I think that says it all.

GEORGE NEGUS: 20 years on from the Cold War, there's a whole new slew of threats from places like Iran, of course, Syria, North Korea to the whole potential powder keg of India and Pakistan -

QUEEN NOOR: Absolutely.

GEORGE NEGUS: and 'loose nukes', as you mention. Is this Obama initiative just wishful thinking when there are so many nations whose position on nuclear weapons is so unclear and, in many cases, totally defiant, let alone Israel, of course, who won't really admit openly that they have even got a weapon?

QUEEN NOOR: Yes, it's an irony that, in fact, Iran, who signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is paying a price for not adhering to its requirements, and Pakistan and Israel, for example, have nuclear arsenals and have not signed the NPT, and certainly are not open to transparency and inspections and the other requirements of the NPT. Yes, there are a lot of different countries who, for a range of reasons, primarily perceived security vulnerability and/or status - have developed nuclear programs, and Iran has had an up-and-down relationship with its program. It signed the NPT and then, feeling a threat - probably from Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war and then, once categorised in "the axis of evil", from the US, and from Israel, after Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor, it now is moving in a direction that is of concern to many. So, we believe you have to address these national and regional insecurities and that is a process that will take time. Global Zero has set out, through its commission, which is made up of scientists and experts and politicians who have been working on this for a long time - a step-by-step action plan for how we might reach global zero in as little as two decades or more.

GEORGE NEGUS: The operable word being 'might'. Your Majesty, could I ask you this? How do you think other nations must feel when 90% of the world's nuclear weapons are still held by the United States and Russia? Isn't it hypocrisy that the US - a major nuclear power - is lecturing other people about what they might and might not do with nuclear weapons?

QUEEN NOOR: Well, I make this point quite often - that if we are going to have a process that succeeds, it has to be transparent, it has to be proportionate, it has to be without any double standards - or, as you might term it, 'hypocrisy' - whatsoever. It can only be done, as you said, on the basis of mutual trust and confidence and fairness.

GEORGE NEGUS: You could argue actually that al-Qaeda has figured out that fomenting nuclear terror doesn't actually mean possessing a nuclear weapon at all. One commentator said that their public relations has been so successful that they've become the world's first virtual terror network. They're terrorising the world simply by suggesting that they might!

QUEEN NOOR: Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it. I, personally, because I do believe there are only two directions we can move in. One is to retain the remaining status quo, which will increase proliferation, or reversing course and working toward zero. So, that being the case, it has galvanised the international community to look at the issue of nuclear terrorism and then consider all those areas where leakage of supplies, smuggling of nuclear materials, lack of security within states - as well as in regions - exists. It is a very real threat. These materials - this is a genocidal instrument of war.

GEORGE NEGUS: Your Majesty, you've been involved in this effort to eliminate nuclear weapons for some time now. Do you often ask yourself if it's just a filthy rumour that the human race is intelligent?

QUEEN NOOR: You forget also, on top of all that, I've lived in the Middle East for over 30 years, where we see that distilled in many respects, absolutely. Today, there are generations who have no idea what the Cold War was really like nor what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we have to educate them.

GEORGE NEGUS: Meanwhile, this week's communique talks about greater efforts to block the likes of al-Qaeda from obtaining building blocks for atomic weapons for malicious purposes. Now, I'm not too sure about this term 'malicious purposes'. Is there any good purpose for having a nuclear weapon?

QUEEN NOOR: This argument has taken place since the weapon was first created by those most intimately involved with it - both the scientists and some of the statesmen who were involved with it - and it has continued over all these decades. We are rather dim that we haven't managed to resolve this earlier, and had all the parties who signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty adhered to the treaty's requirements, we wouldn't have the problem we're dealing with today. I'm a Muslim, as you're no doubt aware. The Koran says the killing of an innocent, the taking of an innocent life, is tantamount to killing all of mankind. These weapons are a sin in my religion and that has been evoked by previous leaders in Iran, believe it or not, and it's something we all have to remember in the Muslim world and I don't think there's any difference for any other faith. The killing of innocent people is a sin.

GEORGE NEGUS: Your Majesty, could it be that we're missing the point, the target, if you'll pardon the expression in this context? As a Muslim who lives in the Middle East, don't you think we should be making greater efforts to find out just why the al-Qaedas and the extremists of this world exist at all? And why, therefore, they would ever vaguely consider a nuclear attack?

QUEEN NOOR: Or, more importantly, why they have followers, because that is the issue and that is where we can make a difference, is to diminish the appeal of extremist, ideological groups that exist all over the world, that do not reflect mainstream beliefs in their faiths, or in their societies or cultures, but have managed to recruit from people who've been disaffected or felt marginalised in some way, as if they have no other way of expressing themselves or giving meaning to their lives. And I think you make a very, very good point and it's a point I've tried to make as well. When we look at a case of Iran, or we look at other states and other regions where there is a problem, why is it that these countries - or the people in these countries - feel so insecure? How can we address those insecurities in non-military, non-threatening, constructive ways that will provide a sustainable future for populations that at the moment are under great economic pressure, great pressure from climate change, from a whole range of factors that are putting increasing numbers of people under the poverty line and great distress?

GEORGE NEGUS: So, ultimately, the real problem is the extremism itself, not the stupidity of having a nuclear weapon?

QUEEN NOOR: I agree with you. I think there are always going to be fanatics and charismatic extremists who are going to be able to draw a following, but they should never - the way that we address or set the priorities in our different countries and, now, as an interdependent global community, to ensure that people have fundamental security in their lives, that we address, we put human security and the welfare of the human being as the underpinning of the good society that we all seek, wherever we live in the world.

GEORGE NEGUS: Unfortunately, Your Majesty, we're losing the satellite but that's a good note to end on. Thanks very much for your time.

QUEEN NOOR: Thank you for your interest in the topic. Bye bye. 

GEORGE NEGUS:  Queen Noor, widow of the late King Hussein of Jordan, and her Global Zero group will soon be releasing a documentary, 'Countdown To Zero'. By no coincidence, its producer is Lawrence Bender, who also produced Al Gore's Oscar-winning doco on global warming, 'An Inconvenient Truth'. By the way, you'll find a photo gallery and more facts and figures from the Washington summit on our website, along with links to Global Zero and more about their film. Just click on to: sbs.com.au/dateline.