IAEA General Conference Fails to Agree on Core Resolutions for Second Year, Russian Diplomat Warns of Crisis

GENEVA, September 23. /TASS/. The General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was unable to agree on key technical resolutions for the second consecutive year, which points to alarming trends indicative of a crisis, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said.

"During sessions of the IAEA General Conference general debates are held, and regularly updated core resolutions are being approved. They cover the agency primary areas of activity: nuclear and radiation safety, technical cooperation, the agency’s activities regarding nuclear science, technologies and use, and IAEA safeguards. During the last two sessions - last year and this year - a breakdown occurred. It was impossible to reach an agreement on updating and adopting these resolutions by consensus," he said. "Perhaps this is not yet a full-blown crisis, but we are witnessing very alarming trends of a crisis nature."

The Russian diplomat added that there were serious reasons to believe that no consensus will be reached in the coming year as well. At the same time, the majority of the countries chose not to support proposals explicitly aimed at launching efforts to overcome existing differences within the open-ended working group, in order to approach the next session of the General Conference with agreed-upon resolutions. This fact speaks for itself, the diplomat continued.

"As a result, it turns out that the supreme body of the IAEA adopts non-consensus, political and non-core resolutions regarding North Korea, Ukraine and the Middle East time and time again, but proves incapable of making products related to the very core of the IAEA mandate," Ulyanov said. "If this dangerous trend is not halted, the agency could suffer the fate of other international organizations, which have noticeably lost their standing in global affairs amid the current turbulence in the international relations."

Russia will do everything it can to prevent events this scenario, Ulyanov said.