Nuclear experts welcome China-US agreement at security summit
The United States and China have agreed to work together to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism at a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. Nuclear experts have welcomed the cooperation, after North Korea fired another short-range missile off its east coast on Friday morning.
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Nuclear experts welcome China-US agreement at security summit
The summit focus for US President, Barack Obama, has been to forge a consensus among East Asian leaders on how to respond to North Korea's recent series of nuclear and missile tests.
"The issue of proliferation in North Korea is something which neither the US or China would like to see and is an important area that they need to cooperate on," says Steve Tsang, a professor of contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Nottingham in the UK.
"It's also probably an issue where, for all the good will, the scope of the cooperation may be rather limited."
The threat of the Islamic State group obtaining a "dirty bomb" was also on the summit leaders' agenda.
"There's also an issue of the safety of radioactive materials that could potentially be taken by some non-state actors," professor Tsang told RFI. "Again, the Americans and the Chinese share a lot in common; they really don't want any of those radioactive materials being accessible to potential terrorist groups. In general terms, Chinese security over their nuclear devices and materials is very strong."
In a statement released by the White House, the United States and China committed to working through the International Atomic Energy Agency to support the conversion of MNSR reactors, or research reactors, in Ghana and Nigeria as soon as possible.
"One of the problems is that many of the nuclear research reactors from the past have had high enriched uranium fuel and there is a big secuirty issue around that," says Peter Storey, a nuclear expert who has previously advised the UK government on nuclear security.
"Potentially you could make nuclear weapons out of that fuel. Over a period of time now, there's been a push by the IAEA and other countries, to try an encourage organisations that make these type of reactors to load them with low enriched fuel, and also try and convert existing reactors by replacing the high enriched uranium with low enriched uranium."
The United States is keen that highly enriched uranium is not used anywhere in the world.
"The USA will be trying to put political pressure on China to make sure that they can convert the reactors that they have constructed and planted in Ghana and Nigeria," Professor Storey says.
China also reaffirmed its readiness to convert all remaining Chinese-origin MNSRs worldwide.
"The real weakness in the link is when you transport the spent fuel," Professor Storey told RFI. "For the Chinese reactors, the spent fuel goes back to China for reprocessing; it has to be transported from Africa to China.
"It will travel on the high seas and we know around parts of Africa, Somalia, there are problems with pirates. Potentially, there is a weak link in terms of the transport of that fuel."
There are still question marks over the extent of North Korea's nuclear capabilities.
"Commentators and experts aren't really certain the extent to which North Korea has a useable nuclear weapons programme, the extent to which they use it as a bargaining chip regionally and internationally," says Kate Hudson, the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
"I think it's very positive that the US and China are working together on this."
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