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Obama wins global nuclear safeguards
4/14/2010
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama secured a pledge from world leaders yesterday to take concerted action to prevent nuclear terrorism, as he pressed for further support to tighten sanctions on Iran.
A draft communique to be issued at the 47-nation summit promised greater efforts to block “non-state actors” like Al Qaeda from obtaining the building blocks for nuclear weapons for “malicious purposes.”
The unprecedented conference unfolded against a backdrop of mounting US pressure to isolate Iran over its nuclear programme. German Chancellor Angela Merkel sounding an optimistic note on getting China and Russia behind a new UN sanctions resolution.
Addressing the summit’s opening session, Obama warned that if Al Qaeda acquired enough loose nuclear material for an atomic weapon it would be a “catastrophe for the world.”
“Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a cruel irony of history — the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up,” Obama said.
“So today is an opportunity not simply to talk, but to act. Not simply to make pledges, but to make real progress for the security of our people,” he told the assembled heads of state and government.
The communique, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, called for new controls on plutonium and highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium, key components of nuclear weapons, and a crackdown on nuclear smuggling.
But, in a nod to some developing countries seeking to launch civilian nuclear programs, the summit agreed that security steps “will not infringe upon the rights of states to develop and utilize nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
SUMMIT SUBTEXT
US officials sought to focus the summit narrowly on nuclear security and avoid clashes among a fractious group ranging from traditional nuclear powers like Russia and Britain to nuclear-armed foes India and Pakistan.
But on the sidelines of the two-day gathering, Obama and his aides conducted an intensive campaign to ratchet up international pressure on Iran.
He secured a crucial pledge from Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday to help craft a new UN sanctions package against Iran, US officials said, but China gave no specific commitment to back tough punitive measures Washington wants. And Beijing stressed yesterday it wanted any Security Council resolution to promote a diplomatic way out of the nuclear standoff. Iran, which is not attending the conference, is China’s third-largest crude oil supplier.
Signaling no let-up in the US push, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met representatives of the permanent five Security Council members and Germany on Monday night on Iran.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, on a flight to South America, told reporters Iran was not expected to be capable of making nuclear weapons for at least a year “and maybe more.”
The West suspects that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Tehran says its objective is purely peaceful.
Also absent from the summit was North Korea, another country regarded by the West as a nuclear troublemaker. Obama sent a clear message to Pyongyang when he announced that South Korea would host the next nuclear security summit in 2012.
While the summit appeared unlikely to yield any surprise breakthroughs, it produced several tangible dividends.
Washington and Moscow signed a deal on Tuesday to reduce stocks of excess weapons-grade plutonium, with US officials saying each country will dispose of 34 metric tons.
The United States, Canada and Mexico agreed to work together with the International Atomic Energy Agency to convert Mexico’s research reactor from the use of highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium fuel. Ukraine, which in 1994 gave up nuclear arms inherited in the collapse of the Soviet Union, announced it would get rid of its highly enriched uranium, and Canada said it would return spent nuclear fuel to the United States, its supplier.
Obama has called the risk of terrorists obtaining nuclear material the world’s biggest security threat.
His counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, said Al Qaeda had made it a top priority to acquire material to make a bomb but had been thwarted so far. He said criminal gangs had scammed Al Qaeda by offering phony materials.
The summit — the biggest hosted by the United States in over six decades — marked a test of Obama’s ability to galvanize global action on a broader nuclear agenda that calls for eventually ridding the planet of atomic weapons.
But some countries are skeptical about the seriousness of the nuclear terrorism threat, viewing it more of an American preoccupation after the September 11, 2001, attacks by Al Qaeda on the United States.
The gathering caps a flurry of nuclear diplomacy for Obama, who has made arms control a signature foreign policy issue.
Last week, he signed a new treaty to cut US and Russian nuclear arsenals and unilaterally announced the United States would limit its use of nuclear weapons, a plan that came under fire from conservative critics.
AP
