Threat of "Nuclear Terror" Diverts Abolition Efforts

  • by Kevin P. Clements
  • Inter Press Service

President Barack Obama indicated in Prague in 2009 that he was interested in achieving a "world without nuclear weapons." Since that bold statement (which was one of the reasons for his Nobel peace prize) he has been persuaded by his foreign policy advisors and pressured by the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories to put nuclear abolition on hold and to focus instead on issues such as nuclear safety and nuclear security, writes Kevin P. Clements, professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand.

The first as well as the second summit (Seoul, March 26-27, 2012) focused on nuclear terrorism and better management of nuclear and fissile materials: how to prevent, detect and respond to the "illicit" (however this is defined) seizure of any kind of nuclear material, whether raw ore, yellow cake, hexafluoride, metal oxide, ceramic pellets or fuel rod assemblies.

The first summit aimed to turn nuclear security issues into an important prerequisite for advancing nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, thereby helping to realise "a world without nuclear weapons." Sceptics argue this diverted attention from the business of deeper cuts in arsenals, dealing more creatively with threshold and virtual nuclear states and establishing clear guidelines/roadmaps for nuclear abolition.

At the tird summit scheduled for 2014 in the Netherlands it is important that these links be established and the abolitionist objective be at the heart of all the conversations.

*Kevin P. Clements is a professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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