President Obama said Saturday that his administration is making “important progress” denying nuclear materials to terrorists, despite attention to holes in nonproliferation efforts.
“Working with other nations, we have removed or secured enough nuclear material for more than 150 nuclear weapons, material that will now never fall into the hands of terrorists,” Obama said in his weekly address on Saturday.
“At this summit, we pledged to keep up our efforts to prevent the world’s most deadly networks from obtaining the world’s most deadly weapons,” Obama said.
The address was taped during this week’s Nuclear Security Summit. More than 50 leaders from around the world huddled at the Washington event to talk about how they could prevent nuclear terrorism. But the effort faced a major setback with Russia deciding to skip the summit altogether.
The United States and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. In fact, Russia has the world’s largest nuclear stockpile, says the Ploughhshares Fund, a foundation dedicated to fighting nuclear proliferation.
Obama’s remarks did not touch on countries, notably North Korea, which has worked to develop a nuclear arsenal since exiting the nuclear Nonproliferation treaty in 2003. Obama also did not mention his deal with Iran.
Critics argue the deal leaves openings for Tehran to secretly violate its commitment to end pursuit of nuclear arms and to resume the effort after the deal lapses in a decade. They point to tests performed by Iran since of its nuclear-capable ballistic missiles which appear to violate a United Nations resolution.
But Obama maintained that this week’s summit, the fourth such event he’s held since 2010, is a step in the right direction.
“Because of the progress we made this week, and over recent years, more of the world’s nuclear material is secure,” Obama said.
