Deal Reached On Nuclear Materials

Last week, 47 countries signed onto a voluntary agreement to secure vulnerable nuclear material within four years. The pact, negotiated in Washington, D.C., at the two-day Nuclear Security Summit, attempts to address the fate of some 2,000 tons of plutonium and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium that exists in dozens of countries, according to the U.S. State Department. The agreement’s focus is to blunt nuclear terrorists in their search for nuclear materials. Although short on details, the pact lays out a work plan and calls for a meeting in December to evaluate progress among participating country specialists, or “sherpas” in the words of the pact. It also requires a follow-up international meeting in 2012 in South Korea. Arms control groups applauded the agreement, but “the real measure of progress will be accountability in implementing the measures discussed at the summit,” the Fissile Materials Working Group said.