The fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit planned by President Barack Obama to enhance international cooperation on the issue opens Thursday in Washington, D.C. Leaders from 56 countries and international organizations are expected to attend the two-day talks. Representatives last met in March 2014 in The Hague, Netherlands. At the close of that summit, Obama said the participants expected this week’s summit to be a “transition summit in which heads of state and government are still participating, but that we are shifting towards a more sustainable model that utilizes our ministers, our technical people, and we are building some sort of architecture that can effectively focus and implement on these issues and supplement the good work that is being done by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and others.” Obama will host delegation heads at the White House Thursday night for a working dinner to start the summit.
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.