Minimising nuclear terrorism to top agenda at Hague summit

Agreement to minimise the use of highly enriched uranium and an improved strategy to protect vulnerable civilian plutonium stocks are expected to be two of the main elements in the final communique from the 58-nation Nuclear Security Summit, which opens in The Hague today.

Some headway on these issues is already believed to have been made despite warnings that the two-day summit could be hamstrung by US budget cuts of $220 million (€159 million) in non-proliferation programmes next year and tension between the US and Russia over the annexation of Crimea.

An early draft of the official communique to be agreed by the participating countries commits them to “continue to minimise the use of HEU [highly enriched uranium] through the conversion of reactor fuel from HEU to low-enriched uranium, where technically and economically feasible”.

According to Prof Matthew Bunn of Harvard University, the text being proposed through Dutch diplomats also includes moves to ensure the security of military nuclear materials and of civilian plutonium – though the former appeared to be meeting resistance.

“I haven’t seen the final language, so I don’t know how successful they were,” said Prof Bunn, a former adviser to Bill Clinton. “My understanding is that they got something – but not as much as they originally wanted.”

'Pretty good results'
In a webcast last week, US president Barack Obama's arms control co-ordinator, Dr Liz Sherwood-Randall, said she expected "some pretty good results on plutonium" in The Hague.

That led to speculation that there has already been a behind-the-scenes diplomatic breakthrough, which means that Japan will send some 730lb of “highly bomb-ready” plutonium, allegedly capable of producing between 40 and 50 nuclear bombs, back to the US.

The US has also been putting pressure on Japan to improve security at a new nuclear reprocessing plant at Rokkasho, due to begin production in October, warning that it could be vulnerable to “extremists”.

Since 1993 there have been 16 confirmed cases of theft of HEU and plutonium documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s illicit trafficking database, most of them in the former Soviet Union.

In 2009, Mr Obama spoke about the danger of terrorists acquiring nuclear material, and said nuclear security would be at the top of his agenda – to prevent a group such as al-Qaeda making a so-called “dirty bomb” of conventional explosives wrapped in radioactive material.

However, in his budget for the coming year, unveiled this month, the president requested $114 million less than expected for the international material protection and co-operation programme, which aims to secure and eliminate “vulnerable” nuclear weapons and material.

He also requested $108 million less than anticipated for the global threat reduction initiative, bringing total cuts to existing nuclear security programmes to $222 million.

“What I take away from this budget is that there was a lack of leadership in trying to maintain the prioritisation of the funding,” said Kenneth Luongo, president of the Partnership for Global Security. “The signal is that we are in retreat. I think that is a huge mistake.”

The controversial decision by Mr Obama to place the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) fabrication facility in South Carolina, which was to make nuclear fuel from plutonium, on “cold standby”, accounts for a large portion of the reduction in the non-proliferation budget.

In diplomatic terms, the problem is that the facility was to play an important part in an agreement with Russia, under which each side was to dispose of 34 tonnes of plutonium.

“The cold standby at MOX will require the administration to renege on the issue at a time when the US-Russian relationship is under strain over Russian military action in Ukraine,” said US energy secretary Ernest Moniz.

“At the right time, we will have to re-engage in those discussions,” he added. “Now may not be the right time.”