A draft communique for the 47-nation summit promised greater efforts to block “nonstate actors” like Al-Qaeda from obtaining the building blocks for nuclear weapons for “malicious purposes.”
The conference unfolded against a backdrop of US pressure to isolate Iran over its nuclear program. German Chancellor Angela Merkel sounded an optimistic note on getting China and Russia behind a new UN sanctions resolution.
Addressing the summit, 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.”
Meanwhile, Russia and the US signed a new protocol Tuesday pledging to complete the disposal of 34 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium each, enough to make 17,000 weapons, officials said.
“The Plutonium Disposition Protocol represents an essential step in the nuclear disarmament process,” the State Department said in a statement. “Each country will proceed to complete and operate facilities that will dispose of at least 34 metric tons of this plutonium by using it as fuel in civil power reactors to produce electricity. Combined, this represents enough material for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons.”
In a separate development, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that Iran was the “only chance” for Obama to succeed after the crises the Washington has faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ahmadinejad also said that he is currently drafting a letter to Obama which will be “published in due time.” “Mr. Obama has only one chance and that is Iran. This is not emotional talk but scientific. He has but one place to say that ‘I made a change and I turned over the world equation’ and that is Iran,” Ahmadinejad said in a live interview on state television.
