Obama to lead summit to secure nuclear materials

Nuclear terrorism a threat to global security

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.

 Treaty to gain access to Headley
India will seek direct access to Pakistani-American David Headley under a bilateral agreement signed in 2005 and a communication is being sent to the US to allow its investigators to question him, reports PTI from New Delhi.
The draft letter was being examined by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram after it was prepared by Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam and officials of National Investigation Agency (NIA), official sources said here.
The NIA has registered a case against Headley for allegedly conspiring to wage a war against the country and under other sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.