Obama: 'Madmen' must not be allowed to get nuclear material

WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama urged world leaders on Friday to do more to safeguard nuclear facilities to prevent “madmen” from groups like Islamic State from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon or a radioactive “dirty bomb.”


Speaking at a nuclear security summit in Washington, Obama said there was a persistent and evolving threat of nuclear terrorism despite progress in reducing such risks. But he insisted: “We cannot be complacent.”


Obama said no group had succeeded in obtaining bomb material but that al Qaeda had long sought them and cited actions by Islamic State militants behind recent attacks in Paris and Brussels that raised similar concerns.


“There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, they would certainly use it to kill as many innocent people as possible,” he said. “It would change our world.”


Obama was hosting more than 50 world leaders for his fourth and final summit focused on efforts to lock down vulnerable atomic materials to prevent nuclear terrorism. North Korea’s nuclear defiance was also high on the agenda.


He has less than 10 months left in office to follow through on one of his signature foreign policy initiatives. While gains have been made, many arms-control advocates say the diplomatic process – which Obama conceived and championed - has lost momentum and could slow even further once he leaves the White House in January.


A boycott by Russian President Vladimir Putin, unwilling to join in a U.S.-dominated gathering at a time of increased tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine and Syria, adds to doubts that the meeting will yield any major decisions.


Deadly bomb attacks in Brussels last month have fueled concern that Islamic State could eventually target nuclear plants, steal material and develop radioactive “dirty bombs”. Militants were found to have secretly videotaped the daily routine of a senior manager of a Belgian nuclear plant, Obama said.


Obama said the required 102 countries had now ratified an amendment to a nuclear security treaty that would tighten protections against nuclear theft and smuggling.


“Our nations have made it harder for terrorists to get their hands on nuclear materials. We have measurably reduced the risks,” Obama said.


But he acknowledged that with roughly 2,000 tons of nuclear material stored around the word, “not all of this is properly secured.”


FOCUS ON IRAN, NORTH KOREA


The United States and Japan also announced they had completed the long-promised task of removing all highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium fuels from a Japanese research project. Japan is an avowedly anti-nuclear-weapons state as the only country ever to have suffered a nuclear attack.


Despite significant strides by Obama in persuading dozens of countries to rid themselves of bomb-making materials or reduce and safeguard stockpiles, much of the world's plutonium and enriched uranium remains vulnerable to theft.


Earlier on Friday, Obama convened a separate meeting of the world powers that negotiated a landmark nuclear pact with Iran last July, a critical component of his nuclear disarmament agenda and a major piece of his foreign policy legacy.


He said efforts to implement the deal, which required Tehran to curb its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, had shown “real progress” but it would take time for Iran to reintegrate into the global economy.


Obama inaugurated the first Nuclear Security Summit nearly six years ago, after a landmark speech in Prague in 2009 laying out the lofty goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.


After Obama leaves office there is no guarantee his successor, who will be elected in November, will keep the issue a high priority.


For now, however, U.S. experts are less concerned about militants obtaining nuclear weapon components than about thefts of ingredients for a low-tech dirty bomb that would use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material and sow panic.


U.S. officials said they had no doubt that Islamic State, which controls swaths of Syria and Iraq, was interested in obtaining such materials, but authorities had no explicit evidence that the group had tried to do so.


Also looming over the summit was continuing concern about nuclear-defiant North Korea. Obama joined South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday in vowing to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang in response to its recent nuclear and missile tests.


But So Se Pyong, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told Reuters on Friday that Pyongyang will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile program in defiance of the United States and its allies, saying there is now a state of "semi-war" on the divided peninsula.


(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, Doina Chiacu, Patricia Zengerle, Susan Heavey and Jeff Mason; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by James Dalgleish)