Shadow of Russia hangs over Nuclear Security Summit

MORE than 50 world leaders are now in the Netherlands for a two-day summit on combating nuclear terrorism, but the escalating crisis in Ukraine is fast threatening to overshadow the high-level event.

The US and its G-7 allies - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK - are gathering on the sidelines of the biennial Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in the Hague today to discuss Russia's annexation of Crimea. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy will also join the talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry will also meet separately to discuss the Ukraine crisis. Mr Lavrov is representing his country at the NSS in Mr Putin's absence.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping here today as Washington seeks to build an international coalition and isolate Russia over its recent actions.

Besides the Crimea issue, all eyes will also be on the outcome of a key trilateral summit involving Mr Obama, South Korean President Park Geun Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Ties between Seoul and Tokyo are at their lowest ebb for years, compounded by issues such as an island territorial dispute and Japan's wartime use of so-called "comfort women". This will be the first formal meeting between Mr Abe and Ms Park since both took office a year ago.

Many of the 53 world leaders, including Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, have arrived ahead of the summit's opening session later today.

Mr Lee's first order of business yesterday was a meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at his official residence the Catshuis. The two leaders said that they would like to deepen and expand cooperation in future.

The Netherlands is Singapore's second-largest investor in the European Union after the UK. There are more than a thousand Dutch companies with operations in Singapore, among them multinationals Philips and Shell.

This is the third time that Mr Lee is attending the NSS, after the inaugural event in Washington four years ago and the second one in Seoul in 2012. The summit, the brainchild of Mr Obama, aims to prevent nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists.