On the eve of the biennial Nuclear Security Summit that gets underway here in Washington on Thursday, the United States has said that it would like to see “even deeper bilateral cooperation” with India on nuclear issues.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leaders from more than 50 countries will be attending the two-day summit, a brainchild of President Barack Obama that was launched in 2010 with the aim of preventing nuclear terrorism, safeguarding nuclear material and countering nuclear smuggling.
“We are certainly looking forward to Prime Minister Modi’s visit. And we are looking at this opportunity as a chance to highlight steps that India has taken in its own nuclear security to go beyond, perhaps, some of the activities that it has done before,” laura Holgate, Special Assistant to the US President, said during a preview of the fourth and final summit under Obama’s stewardship.
“We really would like to see even deeper bilateral cooperation with India proceed going forward out of the summit. So, I hope that will be something that we can work on more closely going forward,” Holgate told reporters at the Foreign Press Centre.
A senior State Department official, replying to a question relating to Pakistan, reiterated US concerns over its “continuing deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons” — an issue that had figured at a recent Congressional hearing.
“When battlefield nuclear weapons are deployed forward, they can represent an enhanced nuclear security threat. It’s more difficult to sustain positive control over systems that are deployed forward,” Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller said.
Noting that this was a lesson learned in Europe during the years of the Cold War, Gottemoeller said: “It’s not related particularly to any one country. Wherever battlefield nuclear weapons exist, they represent particular nuclear security problems.”
This concern notwithstanding, Gottemoeller spoke of “a very solid cooperation with Pakistan on nuclear security”, saying Islamabad has in recent years developed its own Nuclear Security Centre of Excellence and has “quite a mature capability now”.
A fact sheet put out by the White House said the summit community of more than 50 world leaders has built “an impressive track record in meaningful progress towards nuclear security, and on actions that back up our words”.
“The international community has made it harder than ever for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons, and that has made us all more secure,” it noted. Collectively, summit participants have made over 260 national security commitments in the first three Summits, with nearly three-quarters of them having been implemented thus far.
“These outcomes nuclear material removed or eliminated, treaties ratified and implemented, reactors converted, regulations strengthened, Centres of Excellence launched, technologies upgraded, capabilities enhanced — are tangible, concrete evidence of improved nuclear security,” the document noted.
Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, outlining the summit agenda during a conference call with reporters, said that in addition to nuclear security and nuclear energy, the meetings will focus on promoting denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and lifting up the successful efforts to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons to Iran.
Speaking of the efforts to secure nuclear materials from terrorist organisations and other bad actors, Rhodes referred to the 2,000-odd metric tons of nuclear weapons usable materials — highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium — that are present in both civilian and military programmes around the world.