World leaders praise Barack Obama action against nuclear terror

12 April 2012

World leaders have backed President Barack Obama's call for securing all nuclear materials around the globe within four years to keep them out of the grasp of terrorists.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the Washington summit a "complete success".

Only days after he and Mr Obama signed a major nuclear weapons treaty, the Russian leader praised the new co-operation and said it was starting to yield results.

"The environment has been changed and there have been direct results," he said. "And I must say that I am glad that I was part of that."

The threat of nuclear terrorism was the focus of a 47-nation, two-day summit that ended last night. It was the largest gathering of world leaders in the US since the United Nations founding conference 65 years ago.

Mr Obama said nuclear terrorism was the greatest threat facing all countries and a "cruel irony of history" after mankind had survived the Cold War and decades of fear fuelled by America's arms race with the Soviet Union.

Terrorists with plutonium no bigger than an apple could detonate a device capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties, he said.

The countries said they would co-operate more deeply with the United Nations and its watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. They also said they would share information on nuclear detection and ways to prevent dealing in nuclear materials.

Several countries, including Ukraine, Mexico and Canada, said they would give up highly enriched uranium to make it harder for terrorists or criminals to steal or buy it.

Russia and the US have agreed to dispose of tons of weapons-grade plutonium but that will not start for eight years.

Mr Obama said he was confident China would join other nations in pressing for tough new sanctions on Iran for continuing to defy the international community in pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.

Iran, North Korea and Syria, all suspected of wanting to acquire nuclear weapons, were not invited to the summit. Mr Obama wants to impose new sanctions against Iran.

But Mr Medvedev said: "If nothing happens, we will have to deal with sanctions. I do not favour paralysing, crippling sanctions that make people suffer."

Mr Obama conceded that "sanctions are not a magic wand" but hoped the pressure could lead North Korea's leaders to return to nuclear disarmament talks.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said an international court should put on trial countries which provide nuclear technology to terrorists.

"Today we have no way of punishing a country that provides nuclear materials to a terrorist organisation," he said.

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