The 2014 Nuclear Security Summit was a summit held in The Hague, the Netherlands, on March 24 and 25, 2014. It was the third edition of the conference, succeeding the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. The 2014 summit was attended by 58 world leaders (5 of which from observing international organizations), some 5,000 delegates and some 3,000 journalists. The representatives attending the summit included US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The main goal of the conference was generally to improve international cooperation and more specifically to assess which of the objectives that were set at the previous summits in Washington, D.C., and Seoul had not been accomplished in the previous four years and proposing ways of achieving them.
The Nuclear Security Summit aimed to prevent nuclear terrorism by:
reducing the amount of dangerous nuclear material in the world – especially highly enriched uranium improving the security of all nuclear material and radioactive sources improving international cooperation
Countries that participated were interested in leading a certain security theme to a higher level. They could do so by offering a "gift basket", which is an extra initiative that can functioned as a role model for a specific security aspect (provided that it is supported by other countries). The Netherlands, for example, has been developing a gift basket that improves expertise and (international) cooperation regarding nuclear forensics with the help of the Netherlands Forensic Institute.
Although nuclear terrorism and its prevention to reduce and secure nuclear supplies are officially the main topic, the Ukraine crisis overshadowed the talks. The event formed the backdrop for an emergency meeting of G7 leaders on Russia's annexation of Crimea earlier in March 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend, instead sending Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was expected to hold talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Rose Gottemoeller, the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Notable absentees from the summit were North Korea and Iran, excluded by mutual consent.
Background
Highly enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. However, highly enriched uranium is also used in research reactors and for medical isotope production. Plutonium is used by some countries as fuel for nuclear power plants. The leaders gathered at the Nuclear Security Summit aimed to minimize the use of these materials, the amount kept in storage and the number of storage locations, keeping in mind the uses allegedly beneficial to mankind.
In the 4 years since the Washington Nuclear Security Summit in March 2010, Nuclear Security Summit countries had taken steps to accomplish this goal, as outlined in their national progress reports.
Nuclear and other radioactive materials are used extensively in hospitals, industry, and universities. Some of these places with radioactive materials are open to the public. Better securing these materials is one of the main objectives of the Nuclear Security Summit meetings. In addition to better physical security, improving of sensitive information would also help to reduce the likelihood of a terrorist act with radiological or nuclear material, a dirty bomb.
Installing radiation detection equipment would increase the probability of getting caught when smuggling and this would decrease the likelihood of people trying to acquire the materials in the first place. In these areas the Nuclear Security Summit participants reported progress.
Participants
The 2014 Nuclear Security Summit was the largest conference ever held in the Netherlands at the time. The 53 participating countries and 4 observing organizations of the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit were:
Reported results
According to the submitted National Progress Reports of the participated states, 26 of the 28 Nuclear Security Summit countries that had at least 1 kg of highly enriched uranium at the time of the Washington Summit indicated that they have taken action to reduce the amount of dangerous nuclear material. Since the Seoul Summit, at least 15 metric tons of highly enriched uranium had been down-blended to low-enriched uranium, which will be used as fuel for nuclear power plants. This would be the equivalent to approximately 500 nuclear weapons.