Bush-Putin Summit in Slovakia

Statement from Sam Nunn, Co-Chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative,regarding Bush-Putin Summit in Slovakia

Each of the steps Presidents Bush and Putin announced today are important...

Still missing-in-action, but now more possible, is a recognition by Presidents Bush and Putin that their strong leadership is required to bring about:

• Removal of the liability and access obstacles that have proved to be roadblocks to our cooperative threat reduction agenda so we can dramatically accelerate our work to secure nuclear weapons and materials.
• Transparency and accountability for tactical nuclear weapons in both the U.S. and Russian arsenals;
• A process for removing U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert, where they serve more as a grave danger than a deterrent;
• Transparency and cooperation, beginning with the U.S. and Russia, in preventing biological terrorism and the spread of infectious diseases. This must begin with transparency on biological defensive efforts between the U.S. and Russia.
• An acceleration of chemical weapons destruction, which is far behind the agreed-onscheduled.