WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ukraine will get rid of  its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 2012, the White  House said  yesterday in the first tangible result from a  47-nation summit aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Ukraine intended to  remove a “substantial part of its stocks” this year and would  convert its civil nuclear research facilities to operate with  low enriched uranium fuel.

The United States would provide financial and technical  assistance to Ukraine and was likely to store some of the  highly enriched uranium on US soil, he said.

The move by Ukraine, which voluntarily gave up the nuclear  weapons it had inherited with the collapse of the Soviet Union,  is designed to make it harder for terrorists to get hold of  fissile material that could be used in an atomic bomb.

“Today Ukraine announced a landmark decision to get rid of  all of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by the time of  the next nuclear security summit in 2012,” Gibbs told reporters  at a nuclear summit hosted by President Barack Obama.

“This is something that the United States has tried to make  happen for more than 10 years. The material is enough to  construct several nuclear weapons,” Gibbs said.

Diplomats said the summit’s final communique may urge  nations to convert nuclear reactors using highly enriched fuel  into reactors using low enriched fuel, which is harder to adapt  to produce nuclear weapons.