Obama Nuclear Summit to Focus on Smuggled Materials for Weapons

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMVjS5z4UIg4&pos=9

The summit follows Obama’s signing yesterday in Prague of a landmark treaty with Russia to reduce each nation’s nuclear arsenal by about one-third. The accord was signed days after the president announced a shift in U.S. policy to focus more on the threat from extremist groups and nations such as Iran and North Korea rather than confrontation with nuclear powers such as Russia.

Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups “are pursuing the material to build nuclear weapons, and we know that they have the intent to use one,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said on the call. He spoke from Air Force One as Obama returned from Prague.

Nuclear terrorism is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security, Obama said in Prague in April 2009.