South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday that he hopes the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul would produce concrete plans to implement an international consensus on the issue.

"The Nuclear Security Summit, which is aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism, is a peace summit that will help safeguard the peace and safety of 7 billion people around the world as well as future generations. It will also constitute an important step toward realizing a world free of nuclear weapons," Lee said in a joint interview with Xinhua and four other media respectively from South Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan.

"Whereas the Washington Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 served mainly as a venue to proclaim a shared awareness of the need for nuclear security, the upcoming Seoul Summit is expected to produce more advanced and concrete action plans through the Seoul Communique," Lee said.

Lee said that a consensus was expected to be reached at the March 26-27 summit concerning the reduction of plutonium and highly enriched uranium by an amount sufficient to manufacture about 20,000 nuclear weapons.

The world currently possesses enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium to produce more than 100,000 nuclear weapons, he said.

"I hope the Seoul summit will produce tangible progress for the goal of gradually decreasing nuclear materials and bequeathing a safe world free of nuclear weapons to posterity," Lee said.

The president said "it is important to make the whole world embrace the necessity and urgency of international cooperation for nuclear safety and to put such collaboration in place in a concrete manner through the Summit this time."

The purpose of the summit is to prevent nuclear terrorism and to leave to future generations a world without nuclear weapons, Lee said.

"The Nuclear Security Summit ultimately aims at realizing a world without nuclear weapons. In the process, the summit is intended to prevent nuclear materials and radioactive substances from falling into the hands of terrorists."

The president dismissed the argument that the decommissioning and dismantling of atomic power plants is fundamental to nuclear security.

"As the peaceful use of nuclear power and the development of nuclear weapons are two disparate things, a clear distinction should be drawn between the two," Lee said.

"The task lying ahead of us is to bolster international cooperation in order to put in place thorough safety and preventive measures for operating nuclear power plants," the president said.

On South Korea-China relations, Lee said that after he took office, relations between the two countries have been elevated to a strategic cooperative partnership. The two countries have held many summit talks.

"And this year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and it was confirmed that the two countries' relations are developing at a fast speed... I'm also confident that (the trend) will continue in the future," the president said.

On South Korea-U.S. relations, Lee said leaders of the two countries will discuss issues of mutual interest, including the nuclear problems in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and the situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula.

They will also discuss implementation of the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and in particular, a planned DPRK satellite launch in April.

With regard to relations with Japan, Lee said leaders of the two nations should redouble their efforts to further advance future-oriented bilateral ties.

"Our bilateral relations will be able to make a continuous headway if the two nations work together in a more earnest and brave manner," he said.

As for relations with Russia, Lee said the two countries have recently strengthened cooperation in the areas of economy, foreign affairs and security.

"We have so far had fruitful discussions through the yearly Korea-Russia Dialogue," he said. "On top of this, we have also discussed matters of mutual interest on several occasions at home and abroad."