Barack Obama and Xi Jinping on song for nuclear summit

No conclusion for nuclear summit but China and US on the same page while Russia stalks off alone.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop makes a point to her Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstrom during the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit on April 1, 2016 in Washington.

The fourth and final nuclear summit driven by US President Barack Obama wound up in Washington at the weekend without a breakthrough in two days of talks involving 52 leaders.

But the tone of the event, and the list of those who turned up, indicate likely directions for international exchanges for the rest of the year.

These include the prospect of closer co-operation between China and the US and of Russia becoming more isolated as it seeks heightened global status by stepping up its military ­profile.

President Vladimir Putin ­failed to attend, despite having participated in the three ­previous nuclear summits.

The threats that topped the agenda of this meeting were ­Islamist terrorism and North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile on Friday.

Mr Obama said while terrorists had so far failed to ­obtain the materials needed to make a dirty bomb, al-Qa’ida had for a long time attempted to do so, and ­surveillance of nuclear experts by the Islamic State terrorists ­behind the Paris and Brussels ­attacks aroused grave concern.

“There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, they would certainly use it to kill as many innocent people as possible.

“It would change our world,” he said.

“By working together, our ­nations have made it harder for terrorists to get their hands on nuclear material. We have measurably reduced the risk.”

The leaders at the summit signed off on a succession of technical accords intended to tighten the controls on the transfer of nuclear materials.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been the core body organising this ­series of meetings, given the ­responsibility of supervising their implementation.

Mr Obama rebuffed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s comments that it would be better if Japan and South Korea had their own nuclear ­capacity to deter North Korea.

“The person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean peninsula, or the world generally,” he said.

While Mr Putin’s absence ­underlined Russia’s reluctance to participate in any US-led ­programs, even if backed by most other world leaders, China’s official media trumpeted the co-operative nature of President Xi Jinping’s involvement in the summit.

Leaders of five of the six countries that helped broker the Iranian nuclear deal — the US, China, Britain, France and Germany — participated in an event on the sidelines of the summit. The sixth was the absent Russia.