PM: S'pore will follow nuclear security guides

Thirty-five countries on Tuesday committed to bolstering nuclear security, backing a global drive spearheaded by US President Barack Obama to prevent dangerous materials falling into the hands of terrorists.

In a joint statement issued on the sidelines of the third biennial Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, the countries pledged to work closer together and submit to "peer reviews periodically" of their sensitive nuclear security regimes.

The nations - including Israel, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Turkey but not Russia - vowed to "realise or exceed" the standards set out in a series of guidelines laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency to safeguard nuclear materials.

Singapore will accede to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its 2005 Amendment, Channel NewsAsia reported Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as saying at the summit.

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

The standards are the "closest things we have to international standards for nuclear security", US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told reporters as he presented the pledge.

Mr Obama has made improving nuclear safety one of the figurehead foreign policies of his presidency, and said in 2009 that nuclear terrorism was "the most immediate and extreme threat to global security".

Mr Frans Timmermans, foreign minister of the Netherlands, acknowledged that nuclear security had to remain a "national responsibility", but said closer international cooperation could be "a direct contribution in preventing nuclear material becoming a security risk".

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