The 3rd anti-nuclear summit

Andrea Vance writes:

As Europe hovers on the brink of a second Cold War (or so the rhetoric goes), there could not be a better time for more than 50 world leaders to gather to discuss nuclear security.

Prime Minister John Key will join the likes of US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye in the Hague tomorrow.

The Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) was established back in 2009, by Obama, to respond to the threat of nuclear terrorism, and shore up international security systems around fissile materials.

It’s the third such meeting. Previous pow-wows failed to realise Obama’s ultimate goal: to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials by the end of 2013.

Key was a star-turn at the last summit in Seoul in 2012. In an off-the-cuff address, he cautioned a room chock-full of the world’s most powerful, that they would be held to account for failing to stop a nuclear terrorist attack.

The speech clearly made an impact on Obama – who gave Key a shout-out in his closing remarks.

I recall some on the left predicting that Key would be a catastrophe with foreign affairs as his background was all business and no government.