Milestones on the Road
to Nuclear Disarmament

Remarks at the
Opening
Plenary Session of the Nuclear Security Summit

Washington, D.C., April 13, 2010

THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning, everybody.  I’d like to get
started. 
Let me begin by thanking all of you for your participation last night.  I
thought it was a very important discussion.

Before I begin, I want to take this moment once again to
acknowledge
the terrible tragedy that struck the Polish people this weekend.  We are
joined today by a distinguished delegation from Poland, led by
Ambassador Kupiecki.  Mr. Ambassador, all of us were shocked and deeply
saddened by the devastating loss of President Kaczynski, the First Lady,
and so many distinguished civilian and military leaders from your
country.  This was a loss, not just for Poland, but for the world.

As a close friend and ally, the United States stands with
Poland and
Poles everywhere in these very difficult days.  As an international
community, I know that we will all rally around the Polish people, who
have shown extraordinary strength and resilience throughout their
history.  So our hearts go out to your people.  Our thoughts and prayers
are with them.  We join them in this time of mourning.  And so, if
everybody is agreeable, I would like to ask for a moment of silence to
show that solidarity and to honor those who were lost.

(Pause for moment of silence.)

Thank you.  It is my privilege to welcome you to Washington and
to
formally convene this historic summit.  We represent 47 nations from
every region of the world, and I thank each of you for being here.  This
is an unprecedented gathering to address an unprecedented threat.

Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a cruel
irony of
history — the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone
down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up.

Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned
into a
nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations.  Just the smallest amount of
plutonium — about the size of an apple — could kill and injure
hundreds of thousands of innocent people.  Terrorist networks such as al
Qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if
they ever succeeded, they would surely use it.  Were they to do so, it
would be a catastrophe for the world — causing extraordinary loss of
life, and striking a major blow to global peace and stability.

In short, it is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear
terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security — to our
collective security.

And that’s why, one year ago today in — one year ago in
Prague, I
called for a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear
materials around the world in four years.  This is one part of a
broader, comprehensive agenda that the United States is pursuing —
including reducing our nuclear arsenal and stopping the spread of
nuclear weapons — an agenda that will bring us closer to our ultimate
goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

Over the past year, we’ve made progress.  At the United Nations
Security Council last fall, we unanimously passed Resolution 1887
endorsing this comprehensive agenda, including the goal of securing all
nuclear materials.  Last night, in closed session, I believe we made
further progress, pursuing a shared understanding of the grave threat to
our people.

And today, we have the opportunity to take the next steps.

We have the opportunity, as individual nations, to take
specific and
concrete actions to secure the nuclear materials in our countries and to
prevent illicit trafficking and smuggling.  That will be our focus this
morning.

We have the opportunity to strengthen the International Atomic
Energy
Agency, the IAEA, with the resources and authorities it needs to meet
its responsibilities.  That will be our focus at our working lunch.

We have the opportunity, as an international community, to
deepen our
cooperation and to strengthen the institutions and partnerships that
help prevent nuclear materials from ever falling into the hands of
terrorists.  And that will be our focus this afternoon.

And we have the opportunity, as partners, to ensure that our
progress
is not a fleeting moment, but part of a serious and sustained effort. 
And that’s why I am so pleased to announce that President Lee has agreed
to host the next Nuclear Security Summit in the Republic of Korea in
two years.  This reflects South Korea’s leadership, regionally and
globally, and I thank President Lee and the South Korean people for
their willingness to accept this responsibility.

I’d ask President Lee just to say a few words.

PRESIDENT LEE:  Thank you for calling us, for supporting Korea
to
host next summit in 2012.

I assure you I will do best to make this summit a success.  So I
hope
to see all of you in Korea.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.

So today is an opportunity — not simply to talk, but to act. 
Not
simply to make pledges, but to make real progress on the security of our
people.  All this, in turn, requires something else, which is something
more fundamental.  It will require a new mindset — that we summon the
will, as nations and as partners, to do what this moment in history
demands.

I believe strongly that the problems of the 21st century cannot
be
solved by any one nation acting in isolation.  They must be solved by
all of us coming together.

At the dawn of the nuclear age that he helped to unleash,
Albert
Einstein said:  “Now everything has changed…”  And he warned: “We are
drifting towards a catastrophe beyond comparison.  We shall require a
substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”

That truth endures today.  For the sake of our common security,
for
the sake of our survival, we cannot drift.  We need a new manner of
thinking — and action.  That is the challenge before us.  And I thank
all of you for being here to confront that challenge together, in
partnership.

And with that, I’m going to ask that we take a few moments to
allow
the press to exit before our first session.

Read this speech and others by President Obama and members of
the administration, click
here.

To read President Obama's
speech on April 5, 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic, click
here.

~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. He is also a member of Iowa Physicians for
Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace. E-mail Paul
Deaton