Obama presses Iran, gains nuclear summit pledges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Barack  Obama pressed for bold, swift sanctions on Iran yesterday but  acknowledged China has concerns about the economic impact and  said negotiations are difficult.

Ending an unprecedented 47-nation nuclear security summit,  Obama won pledges from world leaders to take joint action to  prevent terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons, steps he  said will make the United States and the world safer.

“Today is a testament of what is possible when nations come  together in a spirit of partnership to embrace our shared  responsibility and confront a shared challenge,” Obama said.

Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West cast a shadow over  the summit, and it was clear that some major hurdles remain on  the road to imposing a new round of UN sanctions on Iran over  its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.

A day after discussing Iran with Chinese President Hu  Jintao, Obama expressed gratitude that China had agreed to help  negotiate a new UN sanctions resolution on Iran but said  Beijing still has concerns about sanctions.

He said he had argued to Hu that there must be consequences  for Iran’s violation of its international obligations. Tehran  denies trying to develop an atomic weapon, saying it wants  peaceful nuclear power for electricity.

“The Chinese are obviously concerned about what  ramifications this might have on the economy generally,” Obama  said. “Iran is an oil-producing state.”

Obama on March 30 said he hoped to get a new sanctions  resolution ready within weeks.

He declined to repeat the timetable yesterday but said he  did not want a long, drawn-out process that takes months, and  that he wants to “see us move forward boldly and quickly.”

“I think that we have a strong number of countries on the  Security Council who believe this is the right thing to do. But  I think these negotiations can be difficult and I am going to  push as hard as I can…” he said.

Beijing stressed yesterday it wanted any Security Council  resolution to promote a diplomatic way out of the nuclear  standoff. Iran, which is not attending the conference, is  China’s third-largest crude oil supplier.

Yukiya Amano, head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the  International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters he was  concerned Iran might reduce cooperation with UN inspectors if  further sanctions are imposed on it.

Obama opened a window on his “frank” talks with Hu  regarding US concerns about China’s currency, which  Washington has long felt is valued too low.

“I think China rightly sees the issue of currency as a…  sovereign issue. I think they are resistant to international  pressure when it comes to them making decisions about their  currency policy and monetary policy,” he said.

The summit’s final communique promised greater efforts to  block “non-state actors” like al Qaeda from obtaining the  building blocks for atomic weapons for “malicious purposes.”

While the summit communique included no mechanism to  enforce the measures, Obama defended the agreement, saying he  believed world leaders were taking their commitments  seriously.

Absent from the summit was North Korea, whose nuclear  weapons programme is a persistent thorn in the side to the West.  Summit leaders sent a clear message to Pyongyang by announcing  South Korea would host the next nuclear security summit in  2012.
Tangible dividends

The summit produced several tangible dividends aimed at  preventing what Obama said was the world’s top security threat  — the risk of terrorists obtaining even a small portion of the  estimated 2,000 tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium  that exists in dozens of countries. Washington and Moscow signed a deal to reduce stocks of  excess weapons-grade plutonium. The United States, Canada and  Mexico agreed to work together with the International Atomic  Energy Agency to convert Mexico’s research reactor from the use  of highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel. Ukraine, which in 1994 gave up nuclear arms inherited in  the collapse of the Soviet Union, announced it would get rid of  its highly enriched uranium, and Canada said it would return  spent nuclear fuel to the United States, its supplier.

The summit marked a test of Obama’s ability to galvanize  global action on a broader nuclear agenda that calls for  eventually ridding the planet of atomic weapons.