United States - President Barack Obama on Monday evening welcomed world leaders to a working dinner in Washington, kicking off a summit aimed at preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons.
After a ceremonial welcome at the Washington Convention Center that saw leaders arrive separately and greeted by Obama, the working dinner got underway.
Earlier in the day Oama conducted a series of bilateral meetings with leaders participating in the summit, where he secured some solid support.
In the meeting with Obama, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich pledged to get rid of the country's stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 2012. For its part, US has agreed to provide technical and financial assistance in that endeavor.
In a private meeting with President Jacob Zuma, Obama urged Zuma to continue to use South Africa's unique authority to advance nuclear security and nonproliferation adding that the country has "special standing" in the world when it comes to this issue.
"South Africa is singular in having had a nuclear weapon program; had moved forward on it, and then decided this was not the right path; dismantled it; and has been a strong, effective leader in the international community around nonproliferation issues," Obama said.
On multilateral issues, the leaders discussed the situation in Zimbabwe. In this light, they agreed on the importance of continued international engagement to forge a path to elections in which the civil and political rights of the Zimbabwean people will be respected.
They also agreed to work closely to build on the existing partnerships including the fight against HIV and Aids and security issues.
The two also acknowledged the critical role that climate change and clean energy will play in securing a safe and prosperous world.
The US has invited 46 countries to participate in the summit, many of them sending their heads of state or government.
The summit is aimed at securing loose nuclear materials around the world in four years, and a joint communique and a specific work plan is likely to be released after Tuesday's two plenary sessions.
The communique is likely to iterate the participating countries ' commitment to the goal of securing nuclear materials in four years, and the work plan will probably line out specific steps as to how the broad goals and commitments of the communique will be implemented.
