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Nations seek to limit nuclear proliferation

By Tan Yingzi (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-04-13 15:02

WASHINGTON - A joint communique and a specific work plan is likely to be released after Tuesday's two plenary sessions of a summit aimed at preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Before the meeting officially got underway, US President Barack Obama conducted a series of bilateral meetings on Monday with leaders participating in the summit, and he secured some solid support.

In the meeting with Obama, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich pledged to get rid of the country's stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 2012, and the United States has agreed to provide technical and financial assistance in that endeavor.

The US has invited 46 countries to participate in the summit, many of them sending their heads of state or government. The summit is aimed at securing loose nuclear materials around the world in four years.

The communique is likely to iterate the participating countries' commitment to the goal of securing nuclear materials in four years, and the work plan will probably line out specific steps as to how the broad goals and commitments of the communique will be implemented.

According to White House officials, Tuesday's plenary session in the morning will be focused on national actions countries can take to secure nuclear material under their control and to deal with the risk of nuclear smuggling within their territory.

They have voiced expectation that some countries will announce steps they are taking to either remove the presence of some nuclear materials on their territory or to consolidate them to protect them better, such as the pledge to remove weapons grade uranium made by Ukraine.

Obama was optimistic in securing the endorsement of the world leaders for his vision.

He said the level of world leader participation in the summit is "an indication of how deeply concerned everybody should be with the possibilities of nuclear traffic."

"I think at the end of this we're going to see some very specific, concrete actions that each nation is taking that will make the world a little bit safer," he told reporters before the welcome ceremony on Monday.

Obama still has a long way to go to fulfill his three-step strategy of reducing global nuclear arms and strengthening nuclear security, analysts said.

At a speech in Prague last April, Obama outlined his major nuclear policy goal as a global mission that requires more than just America's efforts.

He listed nuclear terrorism as the top of his list and his objectives include leading a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons materials at vulnerable sites within four years, convening a nuclear security summit hosted by the United States within a year and setting new standards and pursuing a new partnership to lock down sensitive nuclear materials.

But a common consensus on the threat of nuclear terrorism is not easy to achieve in the international community and the Obama administration must work closely with other countries to realize the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons, US analysts said.

The Obama administration recently launched a series of initiatives to accomplish its nuclear goals.

Last week, Obama approved a new nuclear policy for the US, the Nuclear Posture Review, vowing to reduce America's nuclear arsenal, refrain from nuclear tests and not use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them.

Following that, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Prague that aims to reduce each side's deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550.

This week's Nuclear Security Summit is regarded as a third step to strengthen Obama's hand before he heads to the United Nations next month for the review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the centerpiece of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

Sharon Squassoni, a senior fellow and director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, said a "fundamental challenge" for nuclear security and nuclear nonproliferation is getting other countries to collaborate to make it harder for terrorists and would-be nuclear-weapon states to achieve their goals.

It is difficult to achieve the goals of the summit due to complicated regional security issues, such as India and Pakistan, said Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.

Xinhua contributed to the story