US President Barack Obama will urge nations to agree to steps to ensure nuclear-related material is safe and inaccessible to terrorists when he hosts an unprecedented international summit next week in Washington, advisers said Friday according to dpa. Obama wants to develop an action plan to set standards for securing nuclear stockpiles and accomplishing the goal within four years, the advisers said. That could include pursuing new agreements and strengthening existing ones, they said. "The threat of nuclear terrorism is a very serious threat," said Gary Samore, the White House's senior director for nuclear non- proliferation. Obama will host the two-day summit that begins on Monday and includes leaders and representatives from 47 countries. Thirty-eight heads of state are expected to attend as well as chiefs of the United Nations and its nuclear monitoring body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. Rhodes said this is the largest gathering of heads of state hosted by a US president in decades. "Nuclear security has not been addressed by this many nations at this level before," Rhodes said. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a speech on the subject Friday that all nations must live up to their responsibilities to ensure nuclear material is safely stored. "The potential consequences of mishandling these challenges are deadly," she said at a speech at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Clinton added that international protocols for handling nuclear material are "becoming increasingly fragile and we need a stronger hand."
