Washington, DC - On June 15-16, 2016, the GICNT commemorated its tenth anniversary, demonstrating its durability as an institution committed to strengthening global capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism. GICNT partners gathered in The Hague to reaffirm their commitment to its Statement of Principles and its founding mission to conduct multilateral activities that improve partner nations’ plans, policies, procedures and the capacities of partner nations to work together to defeat the shared threat of nuclear terrorism.
Under the leadership of Russia and the United States, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) was launched in 2006 and has since grown to include 86 partner nations and five official observer organizations, held over 80 multilateral activities, produced seven important foundational guidelines documents and developed a body of best practices that have all served to uplift national capacities to prevent, detect and respond to nuclear terrorism
As the GICNT Implementation and Assessment Group (IAG) Coordinator, Ambassador Kees Nederlof served as Chairman of this 10th Anniversary Meeting and presented this Chairman’s Summary of the important and historic gathering. Mr. Ard van der Steur, Minister of Security and Justice of The Netherlands opened the meeting, and the GICNT Co-Chairs were represented by Ms. Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation of the United States Department of State, and Mr. Mikhail Ulyanov, a member of the Collegium, Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control of the Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The U.S. and Russian Co-Chair representatives read messages of appreciation and support from President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin, respectively, to the GICNT partners represented at the 10th Anniversary Meeting.