Bulgaria welcomes the Nuclear Security Summit being hosted in Washington by US president Barack Obama and expresses solidarity with it, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vessela Tcherneva said in Sofia on April 13 2010.
 
Obama said that the 47-nation summit would produce specific, concrete actions to make the world safer, the Voice of America reported earlier. 
 
Obama said that he wants new commitments to secure nuclear materials to keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
 
With concerns about the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea a major backdrop to the conference, this is the biggest US-sponsored gathering of world leaders in more than 60 years, VOA said.
 
With this summit and efforts to follow, Obama faces a test of his ability to further a nuclear agenda focused on nonproliferation and countering potential nuclear terrorism, with support from like-minded nations.
 
All of the world's major nuclear powers are here - Russia, China, Britain and France - along with South Asian nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. Israel, which is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, but has never confirmed their existence, is also represented. 
 
North Korea, which is believed to have tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, was not invited nor was Iran, which is still engaged in a standoff with the international community over its uranium enrichment program that Tehran maintains is for peaceful purposes and not for nuclear weapons. Syria was also not invited.
 
Iran dismissed the outcome of the Washington conference in advance as it faces the possibility of a fourth round of sanctions under a UN Security Council resolution that Obama says he hopes can be finalised in coming weeks with support from Russia and China.
 
John Brennan, assistant to the president for counterterrorism and homeland security, called the threat of nuclear terrorism real and growing. Although there is no indication that al-Qaeda has a nuclear weapon, he said every step must be taken to ensure that it does not acquire one.
 
"I am determined to ensure that they are not going to be able to obtain that type of capability," Brennan said. "And the best way to do it as we continue to degrade and destroy al-Qaeda is to take away the opportunities they may have to acquire the fissile material, highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium, or the expertise that is required to use that fissile material to create an improvised nuclear explosive device."
 
Saying some countries need to do a better job of "locking down" nuclear materials, Brennan said that a key goal is to ensure that nations understand their responsibilities. 
 
In bilateral meetings with countries such as Kazakhstan and Ukraine, Obama appears to have achieved the support he wants for the final communiqué to be issued on April 13, committing nations to securing nuclear materials over a four year period.
 
To that end, the White House announced an agreement in which Ukraine committed to eliminating its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by the time of the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2012, with a substantial amount to be removed by the end of this year.
 
Saying this was something the United States had sought for more than a decade, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the commitments that Obama wants to see from the summit.
 
"There are a host of roles that the countries represented here can play," Gibbs said. "Again, some have that highly enriched uranium that we are seeking to secure, others can play an effort in how to secure that. Others can play an effort in the interdiction of these types of materials in the event that they leave where they are."
 
Obama's 90-minute meeting with China's president Hu Jintao produced what US officials describe as an agreement that Iran must meet its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations. White House national security aide Jeff Bader said Hu shared US concerns about Iran's nuclear programme and the overall goal of preserving the nonproliferation regime, adding that the two presidents agreed to instruct UN delegations to work with the P5 + 1 on a new Security Council sanctions resolution.
 
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters after the meeting that China hopes the Iran issue can be resolved through dialogue and negotiations.
 
On concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, a White House statement after the president's April 11 meeting with prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said the Pakistani leader gave an assurance that his country "takes nuclear security seriously and has appropriate safeguards in place."
 
US vice president Joe Biden hosted leaders and officials from 11 Non-Aligned Movement nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, telling them that "adding more nuclear weapons or more nuclear-weapon states is the exact wrong approach at this moment in the world's history." 
 
President Obama had two additional bilateral meetings scheduled on April 13 - one with German chancellor Angela Merkel, the other with prime minister Erdogan of Turkey.
 
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he would urge leaders coming together for the summit to rein in nuclear proliferation and prevent extremists from acquiring atomic weapons, the UN News Service said.
 
"Nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats we face today," Ban said before the summit.
 
"That is why, in Washington, I will call on all world leaders to come together, perhaps at the United Nations in September, to further advance this essential cause for humankind."
 
Ban reiterated his call on the UN’s Conference on Disarmament – the sole multilateral disarmament negotiating body – "to immediately start negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other explosive devices."
 
Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (known as the News START Treaty) last week, promising to slash their nuclear arsenal by a third.
 
Ban praised the move, calling it "an important milestone in the international efforts to advance nuclear disarmament and to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons".