Washington: In 2005, as the junior senator
from Illinois, Barack Obama traveled to Russia, Ukraine and
Azerbaijan for a tour of some of the Cold War era`s most scary
weapons sites along with his more senior colleague, Senator
Richard G. Lugar of Indiana.
Five years later, Obama is no longer the understudy. A year ago, the US President pledged to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons and within months he got the Nobel Peace Prize.
On Monday and Tuesday, he will be leading one of the
largest gatherings of world leaders in Washington`s history in
the first summit to focus exclusively on the threat posed by
the world`s unsecured stocks of weapons-grade nuclear
materials.
Obama has identified nuclear terrorism as "the most
immediate and extreme threat to global security."
His aides note that al Qaeda has sought unsuccessfully
to acquire an atomic bomb.
But Obama`s central challenge will be to persuade the
46 foreign leaders or their representatives arriving in
Washington to care as much as he does about securing the
material that could be used to create a bomb, Washington Post
reported.
"It will not be easy," the paper said on the eve of the
Nuclear Security Summit.
"The `Made in the USA` label does not necessarily
guarantee buy-in from others regarding this threat," it quoted
Elizabeth Turpen, an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton and an
expert on nonproliferation as saying.
During his presidential campaign, Obama had pledged to
"secure all loose nuclear materials around the world in my
first term," a goal experts in the field say he is not on pace
to achieve.
Ahead of the summit, the Obama administration released
a new policy statement known as the Nuclear Posture Review,
ending development of new weapons and limiting how the US
would use the ones it has.
Under this, Obama has pledged that Washington won`t use
nuclear weapons against any nation that abides by the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The summit will test Obama`s approach to diplomacy,
which often requires countries to set aside important national
interests to achieve shared international ones, the Post said.
The meeting also comes amid global currents that make
securing nuclear material more urgent and more difficult.
The summit is scheduled to produce a communique calling
for a crackdown on smuggling, support for past UN resolutions
on the subject, and standards for securing highly enriched
uranium and plutonium stocks.
PTI
