Leaders from more than 42 nations are gathering in Washington to participate in the historic Nuclear Security Summit being hosted by President Obama which begins tomorrow. <br/><br/>The nations participating in this summit represent a diverse set of regions and various levels of nuclear material, energy and expertise. <br/><br/>The goals of the Nuclear Security Summit are to come to a common understanding of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism, to agree to effective measures to secure nuclear material and to prevent nuclear smuggling and terrorism. <br/><br/>The summit will also build on efforts to break black market, detect and intercept nuclear material in transit and use financial tools to disrupt dangerous trade. <br/><br/>The countries attending the summit will use this event to initiate and continue regional security dialogue. <br/><br/>Senior American officials say that in addition to promises from individual countries to secure or rid themselves of weapon grade nuclear material, they expect the summit to produce a communiqu’ that would commit participants to strengthen nuclear safeguards. <br/><br/>Mr Obama will lead two separate 2-hour plenary sessions; the first focusing on national commitment to secure nuclear material and the second dealing with international conventions that are aimed at strengthening nuclear controls. Both sessions will focus on the two fuels that most concern the international proliferation experts. These fuels are separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium. These can be used to make nuclear explosives. The attempt will be to deny these fuels to non-state actors to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism. <br/>