New Analysis in Arms Control Today Sets Goals for International Nuclear Security Summit in April

For Immediate Release: Jan. 21, 2010

Media Contacts:  Kenneth N. Luongo, President, Partnership for Global Security (202-332-1412), and Daryl Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association (202-463-8270 ext. 107)

(Washington, D.C.) To achieve its potential, the upcoming nuclear security summit in Washington must "break new ground" on nuclear security rules that are "outdated and desperately need to be supplemented with new initiatives," according to a new article by former senior Energy Department official Kenneth Luongo in the January/February issue of Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association.

President Barack Obama will host more than 40 heads of state April 12-13 at an unprecedented summit on preventing nuclear terrorism and securing all vulnerable nuclear materials in four years.

The article, "Making the Nuclear Security Summit Matter," finds that the April summit is a huge opportunity that, if wasted on rehashing the status quo, would be "extremely disappointing and potentially very dangerous."  

To ensure success, Luongo calls for a set of initiatives to be negotiated in advance of the summit, including:

• Developing a global fissile material security framework agreement;
• Coordinating the actions needed to secure vulnerable nuclear materials from terrorist attack;
• Strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by increasing its funding for nuclear security;
• Consolidating and eliminating global highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium stockpiles and phasing out the use of HEU in civilian programs.

Luongo concludes that "obtaining commitments--including some that exceed agreements in place today--to advance this agenda significantly, locking down those commitments at the heads-of-state level at the summit, and vigorously following through with rapid implementation are the necessary steps to make the summit matter."

The full article is available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_01-02/Luongo.