WASHINGTON: The final communique of President Barack Obama's nuclear summit would commit the 47 nations in attendance to secure all nuclear material in four years, according to a draft of the document obtained by media late on Tuesday.
The document began circulating even as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that his government would shut down its last plutonium factory, a significant milestone in the world's efforts to limit the spread of material that could be used to construct nuclear weapons.
The three-page communique spells out 12 obligations of the nations in attendance, including a promise by each of the signatories to maintain effective security of the nuclear material in their countries.
And it commits the nations to a specific work plan, also to be adopted Tuesday, that spells out best practices, encourages the participants to join international efforts to restrict the exchange of nuclear material, and directs nations to make new investments in nuclear security measures.
The nations pledge "to prevent nonstate actors from obtaining the information or technology required to use such material for malicious purposes; and emphasize the importance of robust national legislative and regulatory frameworks for nuclear security," the document says.
The communique is slated to be announced formally at the end of the afternoon plenary session of the government leaders. Obama is scheduled to hold a televised news conference after the session ends.
A statement released by the United States at the conclusion of the summit Tuesday says the summit has helped move the world toward the ultimate goal Obama offered in Prague a year ago: a world without nuclear weapons.
"Our objective is clear: ensure that terrorists never gain access to plutonium or highly-enriched uranium - the essential ingredients of a nuclear weapon," the statement says.
"The challenge we face is how to lock down the over 2,000 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium [that] exist in dozens of countries with a variety of peaceful as well as military uses."
In opening the summit, Obama told the gathering that in a "cruel irony of history," the threat of nuclear terrorism has increased even as the chances of a nuclear confrontation between nations has decreased.
The United States and Russia later unveiled an agreement to dispose of huge amounts of plutonium from their nuclear weapons.
The agreement, which updates an accord negotiated by then-Vice President Al Gore and the Russians in 2000, was signed Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Under the agreement, both sides said they would dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium. The combined amount of 68 metric tons could be used to build about 17,000 nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said.
In his opening remarks, Obama called for a new global "mindset" in which governments move beyond talk and embrace action to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of al-Qaida and other terror groups.
"Terrorist networks such as al-Qaida have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded, they would surely use it," he said. "Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world, causing extraordinary loss of life, and striking a major blow to global peace and stability."
Speaking at the Washington Convention Center, Obama added: "In short, it is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security - to our collective security."
The purpose of the two-day summit is to shift the world's attention away from the Cold War view of nuclear threats, where nations conducted foreign policy in the shadow of enormous stockpiles of missiles with armed nuclear warheads waiting to be launched. Obama has argued since he was a senator that the greatest threat in the 21st century instead will be the danger of terrorists building even small nuclear weapons that could be smuggled into a country and detonated.
"Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations," Obama said Tuesday morning. "Just the smallest amount of plutonium - about the size of an apple - could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people."
But even as Obama warned of those dangers, his administration was using the gathering of leaders to pursue agreement on a more traditional threat: the Iranian government's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. The president's one-on-one sideline discussions with several foreign leaders - which began Monday and continue -- are aimed largely at seeking agreement on U.N. sanctions that could be imposed on Iran over its uranium-enrichment program.
U.S. officials expressed confidence in those talks after Obama received positive indications of support from Chinese President Hu Jintao during a private, 90-minute discussion.
"The two presidents agreed that the two delegations should work on a sanctions resolution in New York, and that's what we're doing," said Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for Asian affairs. The Chinese, he said, "made clear that they are prepared to work with us."
China has backed three previous sanctions resolutions on Iran, and its support is crucial because it is one of five veto-wielding members of the Security Council. Bader called Monday's meeting "another sign of international unity on this issue."
But Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for the Chinese delegation, was more cautious, indicating that the two sides still differ on the elements of a sanctions resolution. Ma repeated the standard Chinese diplomatic formulation, saying that Hu told Obama he hoped that countries would "actively seek effective ways to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations."
Before his formal remarks Tuesday morning, Obama called for a moment of silence in memory of the Polish president, first lady and other top officials who were killed in a plane crash last week. "This was a loss not just for Poland but for the world," he said. "As a close friend and ally, the U.S. stands with Poland and Poles everywhere in these very difficult days."
Obama also announced that South Korea will host another summit dedicated to containing the spread of nuclear materials in 2012.
And as the talks continued, the White House announced a trilateral agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico to convert the fuel in Mexico's research reactor into a less dangerous form. The agreement, which Obama hailed as a "critical step forward," will eliminate all of the highly enriched uranium - which could be used to make a bomb - from Mexico, officials said.
The Nuclear Security Summit is the first large meeting of world leaders focused on how to keep nuclear materials away from terrorist groups such as al-Qaida. The event has turned the eastern part of downtown Washington into an ultra-high-security zone, with speeding black convoys and flashing police lights criss-crossing the city since Sunday and occasionally snarling traffic.
U.S. officials structured the summit to avoid controversial topics and achieve broad agreement on improving security at places where nuclear material is stored: military installations, civilian research reactors and other facilities. Iran was not invited to the summit. Nor was North Korea, which quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and has twice tested a weapon. But with a flurry of meetings on the sidelines of the summit, "those countries not here are not out of the agenda. People will discuss how to manage them," Finnish President Tarja Halonen said in an interview.
The summit comes at a key moment on the diplomatic calendar. In addition to the looming sanctions effort at the United Nations, nearly 200 countries are scheduled next month to consider strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the pact that long checked the spread of weapons but is now in danger of collapse. Fortifying the treaty is at the heart of Obama's nuclear agenda.
Joshua Pollack, a nuclear expert, said Obama's meetings Sunday and Monday with some of the less prominent world leaders, such as those from Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Ukraine, reflected preparations for next month's treaty conference in New York.
At that meeting, "every member state has an equal vote, even the ones that don't often dominate the headlines ... so there's a courtship aspect," he wrote on the blog ArmsControlWonk.
Obama pledged during his campaign to lock down all "loose" nuclear material in four years - a goal he says he is determined to pursue, despite a lack of progress in his first year.
The objective is to secure nuclear material in military installations, civilian research reactors and universities worldwide and to prevent smuggling. Experts say there is enough nuclear material in the world to make more than 120,000 nuclear weapons.
According to the State Department, the summit is the largest gathering of heads of state and government called by a U.S. leader since the United Nations was founded in 1945.
"I think it's an indication of how deeply concerned everybody should be with the possibilities of nuclear traffic," Obama told reporters, referring to the turnout. "And 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."
Obama opened the event with new pledges from countries to secure their material and discourage smuggling. Ukraine announced Monday that it will dispose of its stock of highly enriched uranium, a critical material used in nuclear weapons. The statement came after Obama met with President Viktor Yanukovych, their first encounter since the Ukrainian leader's February inauguration.
The former Soviet state has about 200 pounds of highly enriched uranium at its civilian research reactors, enough "to make several nuclear weapons," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Ukraine's government has agreed to covert the reactors to low-enriched uranium, which is more difficult to weaponize.
Canada also said it will return its spent nuclear fuel to the United States. Those announcements came after Chile said it had given up its last 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Obama also met Monday with Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. As a condition for Najib attending the summit, the Obama administration demanded that the Malaysian government adopt stricter import and export controls to prevent the country from being used as a transshipment point for smuggled nuclear materials and technology, officials said.
The White House said in a statement that Obama congratulated Najib on the legislation, and that the leaders will work together to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty next month.
The two "agreed on the need for the international community to send a clear signal to Iran that while it has the right to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy, Iran should not use this right to develop nuclear weapons capability," the statement said.
Iran announced Sunday that it will hold its own summit on April 17 and 18, titled "Nuclear Energy for Everyone, Nuclear Arms for No One," according to the Arabic-language broadcaster al-Jazeera.
A majority of Americans are not confident that the summit will make it more difficult for terrorists to get a hold of nuclear materials, according to a new Washington Post -ABC News pool.
The survey, conducted on the eve of the meeting, found that 40 percent of respondents thought the talks would result in tighter controls on nuclear materials, while 56 percent said they were not confident they would succeed in doing so.
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KARACHI: The annual examination 2011 of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) Part-I and II, (Science and General Group) began today amid complains of non-issuance of admit cards and cheating at examination centers, media reported.
