Keep talking, Hu urges President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama held talks Monday on a range of issues, including the situation o...

Keep talking, Hu urges

President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama held talks Monday on a range of issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula, on the sidelines of the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit.

Hu said China is concerned by the recent development of conditions on the peninsula.

"China hopes the US and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will maintain contacts and dialogue and honor the consensus reached between them so as to improve their relations," Hu told Obama.

A senior White House aide told Reuters that Hu indicated to Obama during the talks that he took the North Korean nuclear standoff very seriously and was registering his concern with Pyongyang.

During talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Hu stressed that recently, there have been some new developments in the situation on the peninsula, which have drawn the attention of the international community.

"China has been communicating closely with all related parties including South Korea," President Hu said.

"At present, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is very complicated and sensitive. We do not hope to see a reversal of the hard-won momentum of relaxation of tension on the peninsula," Hu added.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Monday that together with representatives from more than 50 nations and organizations attending the summit, Tokyo will try to put pressure on North Korea over its planned satellite launch next month.

Japanese Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka said Monday that he will issue an order to prepare to intercept the rocket if it passes into Japanese territory.

The South Korean defense ministry also said Monday that it may shoot down the rocket if it enters South Korean airspace.

While the world media focused their attention on North Korea's rocket program, the Seoul communiqué to be adopted today is expected to reaffirm the international commitments to minimizing the use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium and expand discussions on nuclear safety.

The summit, held under the slogan of "beyond security, towards peace," is a follow-up to the inaugural Washington summit in 2010 where Obama set the goal of securing the world's nuclear materials by 2014.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), from 1993 to 2011, more than 2,100 incidents of nuclear and radioactive materials were confirmed, of which about 400 incidents involved unauthorized possession, movement or attempts to illegally trade or use nuclear and radioactive materials.

Khammar Mrabit, director of the IAEA's Office of Nuclear Security, said last week that more needs to be done to improve the safety of nuclear and radioactive materials worldwide.

"Nuclear and other radioactive materials are still not properly secured. We have roughly around 200 incidents per year," he said, adding that "continuous improvement is a must. Complacency is bad."

Liu Daming, a researcher with the China Institute of Atomic Energy, told the Global Times that no country could be safe if nuclear materials fell into the hands of terrorists.

"After several rounds of negotiations between Beijing and Washington, groundwork has been laid for the establishment of the Nuclear Security Demonstration Center in China," Liu said.

According to him, China has been working closely with the IAEA and has provided nuclear security training sessions for staff from around the Asia-Pacific region, including India, Pakistan, South Korea and Japan.

Jasper Pandza, a research analyst on the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Global Times that since the Washington summit, a total of around 400 kilograms of HEU and plutonium had been removed from around the world, and a further 700 kilograms of HEU had been blended down to low-enriched uranium.

"Since 2010, 19 countries ratified the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, the most important international legal agreement in nuclear security. But there remains much more material to be secured, and there are still not enough countries that have ratified the amendment to bring it into force," Pandza stressed.

As for North Korea, Pandza said there is almost no concern that Pyongyang could hand nuclear weapon materials to terrorists as the country would stand to gain nothing from such a move.

"Missile technologies in North Korea are also thought to be well-guarded so there is no concern non-state actors may try to smuggle fissile material out of the country to use it for an attack elsewhere," Pandza added.