VIENNA – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) member states on Monday adopted a ministerial declaration that reaffirmed the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s role in facilitating international cooperation on nuclear security and recommitted themselves to enhancing their own national regimes for protection of weapon-usable materials.
The IAEA is holding its International Conference on Nuclear Security this week to assess global progress in this area since the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit held earlier this year in Washington, D.C., and bring states together to make new pledges in upcoming years. The ministerial declaration largely restates commitments to nuclear security enhancements that governments made at the April event.
Ambassadors Song Young-wan of South Korea and Abel Adelakun Ayoko of Nigeria, representatives of their respective countries to international organizations in Vienna and co-chairs of the consultation process for the declaration, noted during a press conference following adoption of the declaration that this international conference will become a regular feature to be convened every three years.
Asked by NS&D Monitor about the IAEA’s potential role in facilitating U.S.-Russian engagement in nuclear security, Ayoko said the agency did not see any dissent from member states in the process of crafting and adopting the declaration. Moreover, both the United States and Russia were involved in negotiating the declaration, “and therefore no one is left behind,” he said.
Yukiya Amano, IAEA director general, highlighted Monday during the opening ministerial segment “good progress” that has been made through the IAEA since 2013, when the agency held its first conference of this kind. He said the U.N. organization has trained more than 10,000 law enforcement officials in detecting and preventing nuclear smuggling, and has given countries over 3,000 instruments to detect nuclear and radiological materials.
Amano said areas of progress include entry into force of the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material shortly after this year’s Nuclear Security Summit; a significant level of interest in international peer review of various countries’ nuclear security arrangements; and international adherence to IAEA nuclear security guidance. In the future, Amano said, “more attention will be paid to repatriation and disposal of spent radioactive sources at the end of their operational life,” as well as to strengthening computer security and cyber threat training.
