The White House is taking
advantage of the Nuclear Security Summit in
Washington next week to bring together some
crucial countries and lay some groundwork for the next major arms control
conference, over lunch.
Vice President Joseph Biden will host a private soireé
Monday while President Obama is over at Blair House conducting a series of
bilateral meetings. The invitees are countries at the summit who meet two
additional criteria: they are members of the non-aligned movement who are also signatories
to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT review conference will
be in New York in May, and these are some of the countries that will need the
most persuading or pose some risk of complicating that event.
"This group of states will be
critical to the president's agenda to secure vulnerable nuclear materials
around the world, as well as to the broader success of our efforts to reinforce
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," a White House official told The Cable.
The countries that meet the
invitee criteria are Algeria, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco,
Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Singapore, Thailand, UAE, and Vietnam.
The official added that Biden plans
to discuss both next week's summit, which focuses on securing loose nuclear
material, and the NPT conference, which is held every five years and is more
focused on states' actions toward developing nuclear weapons and producing
nuclear fuel.
He will also "take the
opportunity to lay out the steps the administration has taken to reduce its
reliance on nuclear weapons, the contribution to world security represented by
the newly signed New START agreement with Russia, and our common goal to
achieve a successful outcome to the NPT Review Conference," the official said.
Countries that are in compliance
with the NPT are no longer targets of U.S. nuclear weapons, according to
President Obama's newly released Nuclear
Posture Review, so that should put some of the
member countries at ease.
For a full schedule of Nuclear
Security Summit events, read The Cable's summit
preview.
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