Signalling India’s acute concern over the looming dangers of nuclear terrorism, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to highlight the issue at the Nuclear Security Summit being hosted here by President Barack Obama and seek a collective global strategy against it.
The two-day summit kicks off with Obama’s working dinner for leaders from more than 50 countries at the White House on Thursday, followed by three plenary sessions on Friday when the whole gamut of nuclear security will be discussed and a communique with specific nuclear security commitments is hammered out.
Modi, who arrived in Washington from Brussels in the early hours of Thursday, dwelt on the critical importance of the threat nuclear terrorism at the summit in a statement just ahead of his departure from New Delhi.
“The summit would deliberate on the crucial issue of threat to nuclear security caused by nuclear terrorism,” he noted, adding: “leaders would discuss ways and measures through which to strengthen the global nuclear security architecture, especially to ensure that non-state actors do not get access to nuclear material.”
The Prime Minister is expected to intervene in the discussion on national actions and underscore some of the important measures India has taken to strengthen nuclear security. A national progress report document would also be circulated at the summit.
Ahead of the summit deliberations, Modi was slated to have a bilateral meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. He would also be meeting with scientists from laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
President Obama, who has cast the goal of preventing terrorists from obtaining and using a nuclear weapon as the central pillar of summit agenda, has termed nuclear proliferation and potential use of nuclear weapons as the most dangerous of all the threats to global security and peace.
“We’ll review our progress, such as successfully ridding more than a dozen countries of highly enriched uranium and plutonium,” Obama wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post. “Nations, including the United States, will make new commitments, and we’ll continue strengthening the international treaties and institutions that underpin nuclear security.”
Reflecting the American concerns over North Korea’s “continued provocations”, including its recent nuclear test and missile launches, he urged the international community to unitedly face this challenge. He was set to hold on Thursday a trilateral meeting with South Korean President Park Geuj-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Highlighting the threat posed by ISIS, Obama has convened a separate session at the summit to deal with this issue. “Given the continued threat posed by organizations such as the terrorist group we call ISIl, or ISIS, we’ll also join allies and partners in reviewing our counterterrorism efforts, to prevent the world’s most dangerous networks from obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons,” he wrote in The Post.
India, according to the Ministry of External Affairs, expects the summit to further raise the awareness level over the threat of nuclear terrorism and strengthen international cooperation against terrorists and nuclear traffickers.