King attends nuclear summit, holds talks with world leaders

AMMAN – His Majesty King Abdullah attended the Nuclear Security Summit, which began in Washington on Friday, with deliberations focused on international and institutional measures to enhance nuclear safety in the world, and ways to prevent the spread of nuclear and radioactive materials that can be used by terrorist organisations.

His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hussein was present at the event, a Royal Court statement said, along with an array of heads of states and representatives of international organisations concerned with nuclear affairs.

The opening session was held under the slogan of "National Actions to Enhance Nuclear Security," focussing on areas of international cooperation in preventing the transportation of nuclear and radioactive materials, and ways to transfer know-how from countries with experience in dealing with nuclear materials and techniques to others to enable them to develop advanced national programmes.

The summit addressed the importance of strengthening national capacities of countries to enable them to detect nuclear materials and prevent smuggling, applying the best practices in the field. .

Jordan has previously signed a joint action plan with the US to combat the smuggling of nuclear and radioactive materials, aimed to build and strengthen the capacity of the Kingdom in the field of preventing and detecting attempts to smuggle these materials and to respond effectively to such attempts.

The plan comes in implementation of His Majesty King Abdullah's initiative to build and strengthen world countries' capacities to prevent the smuggling of these dangerous materials, which was launched by King Abdullah during his participation in the summits of nuclear security in Seoul and The Hague in 2012 and 2014, respectively, and was supported by 39 countries and international organisations.

Jordan joined to the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT) in February of this year, and has carried out several activities and drills in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and has cooperated with the Interpol in this regard, through training and information exchange.

On the sidelines of the summit, His Majesty held separate meetings with heads of delegations, including the prime ministers of Japan Shinzo Abe, Holland, Mark Rutte and Thailand, Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Talks centered on ways to boost cooperation and bilateral relations, in addition to regional and international affairs of mutual interest, including the global fight against terrorism, the Royal Court said.

The Crown Prince attended the meetings with Abe and Rutte, along with senior officials and diplomats.