Sherpas give final shape to communique for N-security summit

I / Washington April 10, 2010, 12:38 IST

A key nuclear security summit here next week being attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other world leaders is expected to recognise that nuclear terrorism is a serious threat and highlight the need to secure all vulnerable atomic material over a four-year period.

The text of the communique and other documents to be issued at the end of the April 12-13 summit convened by US President Barack Obama were finalised at the meeting of the Sherpas yesterday, during which India was represented by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao.

The meeting was chaired by US Sherpa Gary Samore, Senior Advisor to the President and Senior Director for non-proliferation.

"There will be a high-level communique from the leaders which will recognise that nuclear terrorism is a serious threat (and) which will endorse President Obama's effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials over a four-year period," Samore said.

It will pledge in a general way steps that countries can take on both at national and international levels in order to strengthen nuclear security and prevent terrorists or criminal groups from getting access to materials for nuclear weapons, he said.

"Underlining the communique there's a more detailed work plan which all the countries have agreed to, and that lays out in more specific detail the concrete commitments that countries will take on a national and an international level to strengthen security," he told reporters in a teleconference briefing on the next week's summit.

Samore said there will be a number of national actions that countries will announce in the context of the summit. "It will be things like Chile, which has removed all of the low-enriched uranium -- or all of the highly-enriched uranium from their country. We expect similar kinds of measures will be announced," he said.

Another example is the US-Russia Plutonium Disposition Agreement, where both sides have agreed to dispose of 34 metric tonnes each of weapons-grade plutonium that has been removed from military programmes by burning it in reactors, he said.

"This is an agreement which is very significant in the sense that over a period of a decade or so it will remove very large quantities of weapons-useable materials, and also it's an agreement that's been long stalled," Samore said.