US wants nations to help lock down Nuke materials within 4 yrs

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Apr 10 (PTI) The US Saturday warned that
al-Qaeda has stepped up clandestine hunt for a nuclear bomb
lending urgency to the upcoming historic nuclear summit, where
President Barack Obama wants countries, including India, to
help lock down the world's vulnerable atomic materials within
four years.
White House has high expectations from the two-day
Summit which, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
will be the largest assembly of world leaders hosted by an
American President since the 1945 San Francisco conference
which founded the UN.
The tone for the conference would be set by Obama by
meeting with Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan, the two
new nuclear powers, Sunday as well as leaders of South
Africa and Kazakhstan, two countries that gave up nuclear
weapons programme voluntarily.
A communique to be issued at the end of the Nuclear
Security Summit recognises that nuclear terrorism is a serious
threat and wants countries to endorse a pledge to take steps
both at national and international level to strengthen nuclear
security and prevent terrorists and criminal groups from
gaining access to atomic weapons.
The text of the communique and other conference
documents were finalised at the meeting here of US Sherpas
which was chaired by Gary Samore, senior adviser to the US
president on proliferation. India was represented at the
meeting by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao.
This thrust was outlined by Clinton in a speech on
nuclear non-proliferation at the University of Louisville,
Kentucky where she said that the nature of the atomic threat
has changed.
"We no longer live in constant fear of a global
nuclear war where we're in a standoff against the Russians
with all of our nuclear arsenal on the ready, on a
hair-trigger alert.
"But, as President Obama has said, the risk of a
nuclear attack has actually increased. And the potential
consequences of mishandling this challenge are deadly," she
said.
At the Summit on April 12-13, the US and Russia are to
sign a long delayed agreement to dispose off tons of nuclear
grade plutonium from cold war era nuclear weapons.
Clinton said that a nuclear attack anywhere could
destroy the foundations of global order.
She said while the US and old Soviet Union are no
longer locked in an atomic standoff, nuclear proliferation is
a leading source of insecurity in the world today.
She claimed that nuclear proliferation by countries
like North Korea and Iran endangers US forces, its allies and
its broader global interests. MORE PTI