Dozens of the world’s highest-profile leaders will begin arriving Wednesday in Washington for a major gathering devoted to securing nuclear weapons.
President Barack Obama will host dignitaries from 56 nations and organizations for the Nuclear Security Summit, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Francois Hollande, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
He’ll convene a trilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday morning, seeking to improve ties between the at-odds Asian leaders. Obama will sit for separate talks with President Xi Jinping of China on Thursday afternoon to discuss security, climate and economic issues.
He declined a request to meet with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, though the White House emphasized that they’ve met often in the last several months. Erdo?an has come under scrutiny for his efforts to stop the flow of foreign fighters transiting through Turkey from Syria and other policies that the U.S. would like to see changed.
Belgium and Pakistan are sending top cabinet officials to the nuclear summit rather than the heads of their governments after terror attacks rocked both countries.
Aside from talks on nuclear security, Obama plans to convene a special session focused on ISIS, including bolstering security in urban centers and preventing the terror group from obtaining chemical or radiological weapons.
Planning for the session began earlier this year, before the terror attacks in Brussels but after the Paris and San Bernardino, California, shootings.