Nuclear Summit 2012, Seoul

Program History:

The heads of as many as 53 nations, including India, are expected to attend the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul on March 26 and 27. The first such summit was held in Washington in April 2010, fulfilling a promise President Obama made in his 2009 Prague speech while calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapon.

Reason to start that Program:

1. Getting rid of existing nuclear arsenals

2. Securing and eventual elimination of all fissile materials (i.e. materials which undergo nuclear fission and provide the explosive energy of nuclear weapons

3. The Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) was designed to bring high-level political attention to this vital but hitherto obscure problem of nuclear materials security.

Achievements of NSS 2010, Washington:

·         To start with, the very fact that such a summit took place was a success in itself.

·         Until then, the security of fissile materials would hardly have been considered the stuff of global summits. Nor were they matters of great public concern. Yet 50 world leaders converged on Washington.

·          India, neither a signatory to the NPT nor a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, has been kept out of most international nuclear enclaves in the past. Its inclusion in the Washington Summit was a welcome development

·         reached a consensus that nuclear terrorism is among the top global security challenges and that strong nuclear material security measures are the most effective way to prevent it

·         29 of the countries present made voluntary commitments to enhance nuclear security

·         Chile removed all its Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) — 18 kg — in March 2010

·         Philippines joined the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism

·         India  announced that they would create new “centres of excellence” to promote nuclear security technologies

·         approximately 60 per cent of these national commitments have been completed, and notable progress has been made on the rest

·         Kazakhstan has secured enough material to make 775 nuclear weapons, Russia has ended its plutonium production and signed a plutonium disposition protocol with the U.S., Ukraine has removed over half of its HEU and so on

Targets for NSS 2012, Seoul:

·         Seoul 2012 may choose to address the securing of all radioactive materials, and not just fissile materials

·          Radioactive but non-fissile materials used for medical, agricultural and scientific purposes   can cause casualties and massive disruption, even if not at the scale of nuclear weapons

·         A suitcase full of such radioactive material (the so-called dirty bomb) if exploded in a public place would, in addition to killing some people and polluting the neighbourhood with deadly radiation, also create enormous panic resulting in massive stampedes and more casualties given the public's extreme fear of radioactivity especially after Fukushima

·         They are much easier to assemble. One just pilfers from hospitals and research laboratories bits and pieces of radioactive junk which are not guarded anywhere nearly as well as fissile material

·          Recall the Cobalt-60 leak from Delhi University equipment found in a scrap metal shop