Envoys show diverse nuke summit views

Envoys of four of the five official nuclear weapons states convene during an international conference on nuclear security at the 63 Convention Center in Seoul, Tuesday. From left: Russian Ambassador to Korea Konstantin Vnukov, U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission Mark Tokola, Sun Joun-yung, vice president and CEO of the U.N. Association Korea, British Ambassador to Korea Scot Wightman, French Ambassador to Korea Elisabeth Laurin and Lim

Four of the five official nuclear-weapons states met Tuesday at the 63 Convention Center in Seoul to discuss with foreign envoys and government officials the formal agenda of this month’s Seoul Nuclear Security Summit.

The summit’s stated focus: To safeguard the world’s nuclear materials and keep them out of the hands of terrorists, criminals or other dangerous non-state entities.

Foreign envoys and other participants were, however, equally focused on safety at civilian nuclear power plants, North Korea and Iran and the integrity of the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Chinese Ambassador to Korea Zhang Xinsen did not participate. The nuclear weapons states are those five nations officially permitted to have nuclear weapons under the near universal Nonproliferation Treaty which went into force in 1970.

Ambassadors of France, Great Britain, Russia, and United States Deputy Chief of Mission to Korea Mark Tokola attempted to direct attention on the official aim of the March meeting, during the international conference organized by the Korean Association of International Studies (KAIS) and the U.N. Association Korea.

“I heard several speakers mention this morning that nuclear issues are inter-related. Well, they are also separate,” Tokola said.

“We think it is important that we focus at the nuclear security summit to be hosted in Seoul on the issues (the summit) is here to deal with, that is preventing non-state actors from acquiring nuclear materials either for terrorism or for criminal purposes. We cannot allow the security summit here deal with issues that are not germane to its purpose,” he said.

Last year’s disaster at the Japanese nuclear power station at Fukushima forced safety issues at civilian nuclear power stations onto the summit’s agenda.

March 11 will mark the first anniversary of that horrific nuclear accident, which is ranked 7 with Chernobyl, the highest level of severity, on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Among many foreign envoys at Tuesday’s KAIS conference, the nuclear summit’s new agenda item of nuclear safety and “unofficial summit issues” eclipsed the seemingly far off threat of nuclear terrorism.

In discussion about next month’s summit among diplomats here, anti-Iran oil sanctions and renewed prospects for North Korean denuclearization Six Party Talks, as well as the integrity of the NPT, drew more attention.

U.S. President Barack Obama highlighted in a 2009 speech in Prague nuclear terrorism as the most immediate and extreme threat to world security.

The U.S. set out to secure within four years the world’s vulnerable sites where nuclear and radiological materials are stored.

The following year, the first Nuclear Security Summit was convened in Washington, D.C., where about 50 leaders from international organizations and nations around the world agreed on ways to prevent nuclear material from getting into the hands of terrorists and criminals.

Some countries agreed to close down their sites altogether, moving the materials to countries where more security can be provided. Mexico and Ukraine were two such countries.

The first nuclear security summit also mapped out ways nations can work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to more fully implement the convention on the physical protection of nuclear material which went into force in 1987.

The 2010 nuclear confab also highlighted two international groupings established to safeguard nuclear material against terrorism: The 82-member Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism set up in 2006 and the 24-member G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.

Tuesday’s discussion about the summit’s official agenda next month ― safeguarding radiological and nuclear materials, slipped repeatedly slipped into talk about the dangers posed by a possible civilian nuclear accident, as happened just last year in Korea’s neighbor, Japan, as well as the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and the immediate threat posed by anti-Iran oil sanctions on an already jittery world economy.

The Doomsday Clock moved from 6 minutes to midnight to 5 in January this year, after scientists agreed that the world is now closer to global cataclysm principally because of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima plant in Japan which was caused by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

Iran’s underground uranium enrichment program and the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il also contributed to moving the clock forward by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the organization which oversees the clock.

At the conference, Egyptian Ambassador to Korea Mohamed El Zorkany said participants should not lose sight of the paramount importance of disarmament and the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. South African Ambassador to Korea Hilton Dennis emphasized the ultimate goal of a world without any nuclear weapons must remain front and center at the summit.

The conference was also punctuated by political speeches by the heads of Korea’s two major parties that focused squarely on North Korea. Park Geun-hye, interim leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, formerly called the Grand National Party, delivered a speech in the morning. At lunch, Han Myeong-sook, leader of the opposition Democratic United Party, gave a speech of her own in which lambasted President Lee Myung-bak’s North Korea policy by labeling it a failure.

Though some summit participants appear little focused on the official agenda items, a Korean official did not appear too concerned about a loss of focus.

“In my initial presentation I mentioned as a foot note that the North Korean issue would not be included as an agenda item in the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit, said Lim Sung-nam, Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator to the Six Party Talks.

“Having said that, because there will be more than 50 heads of state and leaders of international organizations, maybe at the margins of the (Summit), there might be some bilateral meetings, there might be some trilateral meetings,” Lim said.

“These heads of state might exchange their views on how to deal with the North Korean issue or the Iran issue. In that sense even though the Seoul Summit meeting in itself might not be a venue to address the North Korean issue in a direct fashion. It can help by providing the international community with a forum through which we can talk about these issues,” he said. <Korea Times/Philip Iglauer>

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