a time when concerns about nuclear proliferation are growing. Government and industry experts agree the fuel market functions well in meeting current demand, and a fuel bank would be designed inherently in a way not to disrupt the existing commercial market in nuclear fuels. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA from 1997 to 2009, has also suggested that no State should be required to give up its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty regarding any parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. In March 2008, an IAEA magazine outlined 12 proposals for a multilateral approach that had been put forward. The proposals ranged from providing backup assurances of supply to establishing an IAEA-controlled low-enriched uranium reserve or setting up international enrichment centers. In May 2009, three proposals were recommended as the form an international fuel bank should take. Two proposals were for Russian and IAEA fuel banks to provide supply of last resort and were initially proposed by Dr. ElBaradei in 2003. Germany put forward a complementary proposal which advocated the creation of an internationally governed nuclear fuel production plant where production would be done in an extraterritorial site inside an unspecified country. Over 60 states, many of them developing nations, have informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that they have an interest in launching nuclear energy programs. However, some of these states have expressed concerns that they would lose all access to enrichment and reprocessing technology if they were to accept fuel from a fuel bank. Kazakhstani Proposal Kazakhstan offered the Ulba Metallurgical Plant as a site for an IAEA administered fuel bank. The IAEA Board of Governors approved the plan to set up the fuel bank in December 2010, but made no choice of the site at that time. The topic of a nuclear fuel bank was briefly mentioned by some members attending the Nuclear Security Summit (2010), a summit being held in Washington, D.C. in April 2010 focusing on how to better safeguard weapons-grade plutonium and uranium to prevent nuclear terrorism. Robert J. Einhorn, Special US Advisor on Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, said the Obama Administration has supported international fuel banks but that "this issue will come up at the May NPT Review Conference, but this is not the focus of" the Nuclear Security Summit. Despite the focus on nuclear terrorism, Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev sought the U.S.'s backing to house a nuclear fuel bank while he was