THE HAGUE: World leaders called upon countries on Tuesday to cut their use and stocks of highly enriched nuclear fuel to the minimum to help prevent militants from obtaining material for atomic bombs.

Winding up the third Nuclear Security Summit, 53 countries — including the United States and Russia at a time of high tension between them — agreed much headway had been made in the past four years.

But they also underlined that many challenges remained and stressed the need for increased international cooperation to make sure highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium and other radioactive substances did not fall into the wrong hands.

The US and Russia set aside their differences over Crimea to endorse the meeting’s final statement aimed at enhancing nuclear security around the world, together with other big powers including China, France, Germany and Britain.

US President Barack Obama said Ukraine’s decision at the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010 to remove all of its HEU was a “vivid reminder that the more of this material we can secure, the safer all of our countries will be”.

“Had that not happened, those dangerous nuclear materials would still be there now,” he told a news conference. “And the difficult situation we are dealing with in Ukraine today would involve yet another level of concern.”

At this year’s summit, Belgium and Italy announced that they had shipped out HEU and plutonium to the US for down-blending into less proliferation-sensitive material or disposal. Japan said it would send hundreds of kilograms of such material to the US.

“We encourage states to minimise their stocks of HEU and to keep their stockpile of separated plutonium to the minimum level,” said the summit communique, which went further in this respect than the previous summit, held in Seoul in 2012.

A fourth meeting will be held in Chicago in 2016, returning to the US where the process was launched by Obama.

“We still have a lot more work to do to fulfil the ambitious goals we set four years ago to fully secure all nuclear and radiological material, civilian and military,” President Obama said.

To drive home the importance of being prepared, the Dutch hosts sprang a surprise by organising a simulation game for the leaders in which they were asked to react to a fictitious nuclear attack or accident in a made-up state, officials said.

Analysts say that radical groups could theoretically build a crude but deadly nuclear bomb if they had the money, technical knowledge and fissile substances needed.

Obtaining weapons-grade nuclear material — HEU or plutonium — poses the biggest challenge for militants, so it must be kept secure both at civilian and military sites, they say.

Around 2,000 tonnes of highly-radioactive materials are spread across hundreds of sites in 25 countries. Most of the material is under military control but a significant quantity is stored in less secured civilian locations, according to the Fissile Materials Working Group (FMWG).

Since 1991, the number of countries with nuclear weapons-usable material has roughly halved from some 50.

However, more than 120 research and isotope production reactors around the world still use HEU for fuel or targets, many of them with “very modest” security measures, a Harvard Kennedy School report said this month.

SHARIF’S SPEECH: Addressing an informal plenary of the summit, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stressed constant vigilance and preparedness at the national level as well as international cooperation, which were necessary to strengthen the nuclear security.

“Let me clarify that there is no such thing as ‘nuclear security fatigue’. Nuclear security is a continuous national responsibility,” the prime minister said.

He suggested that in the years to come, the states should maintain the political will and high level focus to advance the agenda of nuclear security.

“In future, while implementing our decisions, we have to strike a balance between confidentiality and openness; and steer away from both alarmism and complacency. Nuclear security must not fade off the leaders’ radar screens,” he said.The prime minister expressed the pleasure that US President Barack Obama would be hosting the next nuclear security summit (NSS) in 2016.

“It is only fitting that this process, which was launched in the United States, is also concluded there. We know we cannot hold the summits in perpetuity,” he said.

He said in the past four years, three summits had made progress; and their next summit would cover fresh ground. “We have to look beyond the present process and the 2016.”

Prime Minister Sharif also stressed the need to broaden participation in this process for widening its ownership to enhance its legitimacy.

It makes perfect sense that beyond 2016 the entire membership of the IAEA owns and upholds the decisions taken by the nuclear security summits, he said.—Agencies