Two letters sent this week to President Obama and national leaders attending the Nuclear Security Summit underscore the importance of concerted efforts to secure nuclear materials and offer technical areas of opportunity for continued progress following the end of the summit process.
In a March 28 letter, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeffrey Merkley (D-Ore.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on the administration to “redouble efforts to reduce global nuclear weapons threats and proliferation risks” by “building additional proliferation barriers worldwide, keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists and engaging nuclear-armed states in the nuclear weapons threat reduction enterprise.”
The letter encourages providing greater resources to the International Atomic Energy Agency to pursue strategies that will increase proliferation barriers; advocacy for a ban on highly enriched uranium and plutonium production among countries near Iran following the Iran nuclear deal; and development of a “moratorium on research, development, and flight-testing of medium-range and long-range ballistic missiles or cruise missiles” in the same region. It also urged the administration to propose alongside Russia steps to further reduce each nation’s deployed strategic arsenals to 1,000 warheads and 500 delivery vehicles by 2021, and call on nuclear-armed states to freeze the size of their stockpiles while the two nations continue reducing their arsenals.
A March 29 letter to national leaders attending the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, signed by 35 Nobel Laureates, highlighted three technical areas to be addressed to advance international nonproliferation efforts. The letter calls for technical studies on the feasibility to transition from highly enriched to low-enriched uranium fuels in naval nuclear propulsion; provision of greater national and international resources for the conversion or shutdown of research reactors fueled by highly enriched uranium, including re-engagement with Russian technical experts to address reactors in their nation; and the development of commercially viable, nonradioactive source alternatives for medical research and industrial applications to reduce the risk of radiological terrorism. The letter was written by Burton Richter, a Nobel Laureate in physics and professor at Stanford University, and Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists.
The nongovernmental Nuclear Threat Initiative also unveiled Tuesday a “call to action on nuclear terrorism,” signed by over 140 political, business, academic, and military leaders, urging world leaders to continue nuclear security work after this week’s summit. “We call on leaders to accelerate the effort to prevent catastrophic nuclear terrorism and continue their work beyond this last Summit to create global standards, accountability and best practices for securing all nuclear materials,” the statement said. Signatories include former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The Obama administration’s final Nuclear Security Summit began Thursday in Washington, D.C., and ends today.
