World leaders including US President Barack Obama called Tuesday for strong steps to combat nuclear terrorism, wrapping up a 53-nation summit overshadowed by North Korea's planned rocket launch. “Today we have set a new milestone in making the world a safer and more peaceful place,” South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who hosted the summit, said at the end of the two-day event. The leaders from 53 nations, including China's Hu Jintao and Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, called in a communique for steps to minimize civilian use of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used to make bombs. They also called for safeguarding world stockpiles of HEU and plutonium, and tightening security of radioactive material that could be used to create a “dirty” bomb. “Nuclear terrorism continues to be one of the most challenging threats to international security,” the leaders said in the communique. “Defeating this threat requires strong national measures and international cooperation.” The North's nuclear and missile ambitions were not officially on the agenda, but they were the focus on the sidelines, and for Obama throughout his three-day visit to South Korea, a close US ally. The North stole some of the limelight right up to the end, releasing a statement just before the close of the summit snubbing demands from Obama and other leaders to scrap a satellite launch planned for April. “We will never give up the right to launch a peaceful satellite, a legitimate right of a sovereign state and an essential step for economic development,” a foreign ministry spokesman told the official KCNA news agency. The spokesman was responding to Obama's comments Sunday and Monday during a visit to South Korea.
