President Schneider-Ammann to represent Switzerland at Nuclear Security Summit in Washington
Bern, 29.03.2016 - President Johann N. Schneider-Ammann will travel to Washington on Thursday to attend the fourth Nuclear Security Summit. The aim of the two-day meeting is for the international community to agree on further steps to counter nuclear smuggling and mitigate the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack. Around 50 heads of state and government are expected to attend; President Schneider-Ammann will use the opportunity to hold bilateral talks with a number of leaders of invited states on the fringes of the summit.
The summit will open on Thursday evening with a dinner at the White House where discussions will focus on addressing the threat presented by insufficiently secured nuclear material. The 2016 Nuclear Security Summit is the fourth and last summit in a process initiated by US President Barack Obama in Washington in 2010 aimed at improving measures to secure nuclear material, in particular by preventing terrorists, criminals and other unauthorised actors from acquiring nuclear materials. Follow-up summits were held in Seoul in 2012 and in The Hague in 2014.
Switzerland has been actively involved in this process since 2010, where the focus has been on reducing stocks of and facilities holding particularly sensitive nuclear material such as plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Switzerland has made a significant contribution to these efforts by transferring to the USA its stocks of plutonium from the federal government's liquidated storage facility and highly enriched uranium from the decommissioned research reactor at the University of Basel.
Switzerland supports the aim of securing not only civilian nuclear material, but also nuclear material intended for military purposes. It also emphasises the clear link between nuclear security and nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, Switzerland is committed to more universal compliance with the existing international nuclear security regulatory framework, and supports efforts to strengthen the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a central platform for coordinating international initiatives.
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