As 35 nations have pledged to turn nuclear security guidelines into national laws at the Nuclear Security Summit, Obama declared that this marks a fundamental shift in international efforts against nuclear terrorism.
In explaining why this latest development matters so much, Obama said, “I’ll close by reminding everyone that one of the achievements of my first summit in 2010 was Ukraine’s decision to remove all of its highly enriched uranium from its nuclear fuel sites. Had that not happened, those dangerous nuclear materials would still be there now. And the difficult situation we’re dealing with in Ukraine today would involve yet another level of concern.”
Even though only 35 nations agreed with turning these guidelines into the laws, all 53 nations who attended the summit, agreed to continue looking for ways to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists.
Some of the nations that were conspicuously absent from the summit that was held in The Hague were Iran and North Korea while Russia, India, China and Pakistan chose to be absent from the agreement.
As a part of the agreement, the nations that were in favor of turning these guidelines into laws were open to an independent review of their security procedures that would, in fact, create an international framework so as to curtail nuclear terrorism.
Obama also emphasized the importance of such a summit in saying that with the consequences of a single attack being catastrophic, it is not good to be complacent about nuclear security.