Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), speaks as Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi listens during a press conference at the Iikura Guest House in Tokyo on May 19. Hiro Komae/Associated Press
The UN nuclear chief warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control” and issued an urgent appeal to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear meltdown. an accident.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the situation was becoming more dangerous by the day at the Zaporizhia plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their invasion of Ukraine on 24 Feb.
“All principles of nuclear safety have been violated” at the plant, he said. “The stake is extremely serious, extremely difficult and dangerous.”
Grossi cited numerous safety violations at the plant, adding that it was “in a place of active warfare” near territory controlled by Russia.
The plant’s physical integrity had not been respected, he said, citing shelling at the start of the war when it was taken over, and continued reports from Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of attacks on Zaporozhye.
There is a “paradoxical situation” where the plant is controlled by Russia but its Ukrainian personnel continue to manage its nuclear operations, leading to inevitable moments of friction and alleged violence, he said. Although the IAEA has some contacts with staff, they are “flawed” and “broken”, he said.
Grossi said the supply chain for equipment and spare parts had been disrupted, “so we’re not sure the plant is getting everything it needs.” The IAEA also has to carry out very important inspections to ensure that nuclear material is protected, “and there is a lot of nuclear material that needs to be inspected,” he said.
“When you put that together, you have a catalog of things that should never happen at any nuclear facility,” Grossi said. “And that’s why I’ve been insisting from day one that we should be able to go there to do that safety and security assessment and do the remediation and help like we already did at Chernobyl.”
Russia’s takeover of Zaporozhye has renewed fears that the largest of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors could be damaged, triggering another emergency like the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which occurred about 110 kilometers (65 mi) north of the capital, Kyiv.
Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated site soon after the invasion, but returned control back to the Ukrainians in late March. Grossi visited Chernobyl on April 27 and tweeted that the safety level was “like a flashing red light.” But he said on Tuesday that the IAEA had set up an “assistance mission” in Chernobyl at the time, “which has been very, very successful so far”.
The IAEA should go to Zaporozhye, as it did in Chernobyl, to establish the facts of what is actually happening there, to carry out repairs and inspections and “prevent a nuclear accident,” Grossi said.
The IAEA chief said he and his team needed protection to reach the headquarters and the urgent cooperation of Russia and Ukraine.
Each country wants this international mission to depart from different sites, which is understandable in light of territorial integrity and political considerations, he said, but there is something more urgent, and that is sending the IAEA team to Zaporizhia.
“The IAEA, with its presence, will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant,” Grossi said. “So I’m asking as an international civil servant, as the head of an international organization, I’m asking both sides to allow this mission to continue.”
Grossi was in New York to deliver the keynote address at Monday’s opening of the long-delayed high-level review of the landmark 50-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, aimed at preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a world without nuclear weapon.
In the interview, the IAEA chief also talked about efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers, which the Trump administration abandoned in 2018 and the Biden administration is working to renew.
Grossi said there are “ongoing efforts to try to have another meeting or round to explore the possibilities of reaching an agreement.” He said he heard the meeting “could be soon.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the NPT Review Conference on Monday that Iran was “either unwilling or unable” to accept a deal to return to the 2015 deal aimed at curbing its nuclear program .
Grossi said “there are important differences between the negotiating parties” and important verification issues related to past activities that Iran must resolve. “It’s not impossible, it’s complicated,” he said.
If the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, is not extended, he said some IAEA inspections would continue. But the JCPOA provides for additional transparency and inspections “that I think are extremely important, very necessary because of the scope and depth of Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.
Grossi stressed that cooperating with the IAEA, answering its questions, allowing its inspectors to go where they need to, is essential for Iran to build trust and confidence. “Promises and good words will not do,” he said.
On another matter, Grossi said last September’s deal, in which the United States and Britain would provide Australia with nuclear reactors to power its submarines, required an agreement with the IAEA to ensure that the amount of nuclear material on the ship when it left port , is there when it returns.
He said Australia had not decided what type of vessel it would get, so while there had been preparatory talks, substantive talks could not begin.
Because it’s a warship, Grossi said, “there are a lot of confidentiality and information security measures that have to go into any agreement like this, so it’s very complex technologically.”
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