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Obama Wins Agreement on First Day of Nuclear Security Summit
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April 12, 2010 5:04 p.m. EST
Topics: politics, defense, nuclear weapons, diplomacy, unrest, conflicts and war, peace negotiations, weaponry, United States
Tom Ramstack - AHN News Correspondent
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - President Obama announced an agreement with the Ukraine Monday to give up its weapons grade uranium during the first day of a summit meeting in Washington, D.C., on how to secure the world’s nuclear weapons.
The meeting with leaders of 47 nations is the biggest gathering of heads of state since Franklin D. Roosevelt organized a 1945 meeting in San Francisco that led to creation of the United Nations.
Before the Nuclear Security Summit ends Tuesday, Obama seeks a commitment among participating nations to work toward preventing terrorists and rogue nations from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The Ukraine’s announcement came shortly after Obama met with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
The Ukraine plans to dispose of 90 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that could be used to make several nuclear bombs, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Obama also met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak of Malaysia.
Iran and North Korea – who Obama has named as “outlier” nations for their nuclear weapons programs – were not invited.
During a press briefing before the summit, Obama called nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists “the single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term.”
The nuclear security summit represents one more step toward Obama’s goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
Another one occurred last week, when he signed an agreement with Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both countries by one-third.
During his presidential campaign, Obama pledged to “increase funding by $1 billion a year to ensure that within four years, the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons are removed from all the world’s most vulnerable sites….”
His campaign promise quickly fell victim to economic realities. The federal budget for better nuclear controls fell by $25 million, or 2 percent, in Obama’s first year in office.
The summit this week is an outgrowth of the United Nations’ 2005 Nuclear Terrorism Convention, which sought safeguards on stockpiles of plutonium and enriched uranium.
The 47 participating nations are focusing on the narrow issue of preventing nuclear material from being stolen or purchased by terrorists or violent nations.
Obama administration officials say it is the only issue for which they realistically could win an agreement.
The political motivation for the summit comes from incidents such as North Korea’s recent assistance to Syria in building a nuclear reactor, which was destroyed by Israeli jet fighters.
Other incidents include Iran’s enrichment of uranium to weapons grade and a territorial dispute between Pakistan and India which led both countries to increase production of nuclear material.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on ABC’s “This Week” television show Sunday that North Korea and Iran are major concerns because “they are unpredictable.”
Pakistan represents a threat because it is home to the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal as well as Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents who want to get control of it, nuclear experts say.
Obama expressed his disappointment with the Pakistanis in a private meeting Sunday with the country’s new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani. He says Pakistan is obstructing negotiations on a new nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Pakistan is building two new reactors for making weapons-grade plutonium.
“If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating,” Obama said before the summit. “We know that organizations like al-Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, and would have no compunction at using them.”
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