The IAEA Mission in Ukraine: A Conversation with Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi

Seth Jones: Welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We’re here for a conversation with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, who was just reappointed by the IAEA Board of Governors for another four-year term as director general. Congratulations. Congratulations, also, for a somewhat recent World Cup victory for Argentina. (Laughter.)

Director General Grossi oversees the IAEA at a critical period in the organization’s history. Obviously, we’ve got major war taking place around nuclear power plants in and around Ukraine. Director General Grossi’s here today to describe the efforts to safeguard these critical facilities from that ongoing war in Ukraine.

The protection of power plants in Ukraine is not the sole issue concerning the IAEA at the moment. The director general recently traveled to Iran, and is overseeing the agency’s verification and monitoring responsibilities related to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the ongoing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. The agency is also continuing to work closely with AUKUS partners to develop detailed verification arrangements for Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.

So just to be clear, ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran nuclear weapons, and AUKUS all in the news – on the frontpages of most newspapers this week. So you’re operating in a very hot environment.

These are just a few of the items in a long list of efforts and responsibilities managed by Director General Grossi and the IAEA to safeguard nuclear material around the world. Director General Grossi is here at CSIS joining us this afternoon after meeting with our 2023 cohort of nuclear scholars. It’s a program run by the Project on Nuclear Issues here at CSIS for young professionals to learn from and network with nuclear experts from around the world, obviously including the director of the IAEA.

Moderating this session will be Dr. Heather Willliams, director of the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow with CSIS’s International Security Program. So, Heather, I hand the floor over to you. Thank you very much for hosting this.

Heather Williams: Thank you very much for the introduction.

Hello, everybody. As Dr. Jones said, I’m Heather Williams. I’m the director of the Project on Nuclear Issues, affectionately known as PONI. And we are just absolutely thrilled today for today’s discussion with Director General of the IAEA Rafael Grossi. For those of you in person, also for those of you joining virtually, thank you so much for joining this important conversation. As Dr. Jones said, there’s a lot of ground to cover here: Ukraine, Iran, AUKUS.

Before we dive into all of that, just a couple quick housekeeping items.

The first is I do need to share with for those of you in the room our building’s safety precautions. Overall, we feel secure in our building. But as a convener, we have a duty to prepare for any eventuality. I will serve as your responsible safety officer in that event. Please follow my instructions should the need arise. And so, finally, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our emergency exit pathways there, there, there, there.

For the question-and-answer portion, so Director General Grossi will provide some opening remarks and then we will open it up for a wider discussion. If you are in the room and wish to get involved, please raise your hand and a member of the PONI staff will bring you a microphone. If you’re joining us online, please send in questions using the Google form that is located on the webpage for this event.

So, with that out of the way, I am thrilled to get this conversation started. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi assumed office on December 3rd, 2019, and was just reappointed for his term. DG Grossi is a diplomat with more than 35 years of experience in the fields of nonproliferation and disarmament. In 2013, he was appointed ambassador of Argentina to Austria and the Argentine representative to the IAEA and other Vienna-based international organizations. Before assuming office as the IAEA’s director general, DG Grossi was president-designate of the 2020 Review Conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which didn’t end up happening until 2022, I believe. But from 2014 to 2016, he also served as president of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. And so we’re just thrilled to have somebody of his expertise and background at such a timely moment to join us and talk about these issues.

And with that, I will turn it over to you. And please feel free to use the podium.

Rafael Grossi: Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody. Heather, great to be with you again and to see you in your new capacity. Congratulations. And also, those here in the room and online, in these troubled times it’s good to be in centers of thought and analysis like the CSIS and PONI in particular to be able to explain what we are trying to do about some of these problems and also to get some of your feedback – your comments, your questions – that certainly help me be better in what I’m trying to do.

I think, Seth, in your words of introduction you were listing a number of issues, all of them making the headlines every day. And this brings us to the realization of the IAEA is an institution – as an institution, as an international organization playing a role maybe not at the center, but playing a central role in all of them is the expression of the will of the international community to find spaces for convergence. When the IAEA was created – incidentally, and we are going to be celebrating that in a few months’ time, but after a seminal statement pronounced 70 years ago, in 1953 precisely, and now we are starting 2023 – was on this concept that – so the light here in America of having this tremendous opportunity of nuclear science and technology for peace and for development. And then the mission evolved, taking us to where we are today where the institution is able to contribute to prevent crisis and hopefully the worst consequences of war, and to prevent situations to get worse like in the case of Iran and in other places where proliferation questions are being raised.

So not to mention, I think, here we might add our role or the role that we are playing and can play in terms of the energy crisis and the energy security crisis, which are two different things. And on both, the IAEA has an important role to play.

And I always like to remember, even if I am in my – I am in an august circle of strategic thinkers, that the IAEA does a lot of good to improve the lives of millions across the planet: providing cancer care through nuclear medicine, through radiotherapy; giving countries hope in terms of their agriculture, water management, and other things. Don’t forget that, because those elements are also – and also, as strategic thinkers, because these elements are also part of the behavioral response of communities across the world to the IAEA and to what the IAEA means for them and can do for them.

I would say this is a moment where our generation is confronted with this amazing convergence of all these crises all of a sudden. We need wisdom to respond to them and we need to have the tools to address them, and the IAEA is one of them – just one of them, but I believe one that can do a lot of good in facing all these situations. So we are dealing with them.

And I’m here in Washington at a very particular moment, where just 24 hours ago the president of this country, with the prime ministers – the prime minister of two important nations – the United Kingdom and Australia – announced a very ambitious project that for the first time in history is going to allow a country that does not have nuclear weapons to be equipped with nuclear-powered capacities, which will have an important strategic effect. And in all of this – and in all of this, again, the IAEA is called to play a role which is in itself in an area that is by nature strategic, because this is going to be altering the landscape of an important region like the Indo-Pacific where many of the controversies and tensions that we are facing are going to be manifesting themselves, whether we like it or not, in the next few decades.

So in all of this, the IAEA – what the IAEA is doing, what the IAEA can do is what I am going to try to answer today through the – I’m sure we’re going to be – your very sharp questions. So my pleasure to be with you again, and in your hands, Heather, to start looking at this thing through the unique prism of your questions. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Dr. Williams: Well, thank you very much for setting the scene and continuing to engage with these really difficult questions. So I have a couple questions for you to get us started.

We’ll start – we’ll start with Ukraine.

I believe it was last week you gave a speech in which you warned that the international community was being complacent about nuclear safety and that we were rolling the dice, and it was some of the most emphatic and strongest language that I’ve heard you use yet about concerns about nuclear safety and security. And so I was wondering if you could reflect on that a bit and say, why do you think we’re complacent? Where is that coming from? And what needs to be done to combat that complacency about nuclear safety and security?

DG Grossi: Well, I believe that at certain moments it is important, when confronted with such dramatic circumstances, to face the facts, to express them in all clarity, and not to sugarcoat what could be the consequences of our own inaction in the face of these issues. As head of an international organization, I’m not one of those who say: Well, I’m in the hands of member states; I can do only what member states allow me to do. This is not the healthy dynamic that you must have in an international organization when you have a responsibility on behalf of these countries and their authority, of course, but where you have to play your role in the metabolism of that dynamic.

So I have a mission. I have a statute. I have responsibilities. And it is up to me to tell my member states: Member states, let’s pause for a second and let’s do something about this. Of course, this thing to be done must be politically possible/viable, and my impression is that we have viable solutions on the table. And I’ve been working on a proposal to provide protection to the plant for many months, and I felt last week the sixth time where the largest/biggest nuclear power plant in Europe was being cooled through emergency diesel generators that we shouldn’t be in that position, that it was not – it is not needed to be in that position, and that we as IAEA and member states of the IAEA could support the efforts of the director general to put us in a better position.

We are not pretending to, by some magic, give the plant back to its legitimate owner, which hopefully will happen in a not-too-distant future. But we have a problem that we need to solve, and there is an immense risk. And I wouldn’t be doing any service to my office or to the international community if I was to simply let it pass as something that, you know, too bad; it’s not happening.

It is – you know, these member states, they are stubborn. No. It is my responsibility to continue pushing to put viable ideas on the table to explain how this can work, and also to get the necessary support. So it was in this sense, and it was, I would say, a collective complacency. I was not – I’m not above anybody. I’m part of that. And I’m also telling to myself, how come that you are not able to convince, that you are not able to make things clear, to make things possible for countries to agree?

So it’s a dynamic. It’s a dynamic that must be leading to an outcome, and we are not there yet. Hence my frustration, but it is not a frustration that is devoided of a sense of purpose and fundamentally, yes, optimism. I believe we are going to be able to do something about this. I truly believe it.

But there are moments, and there are bad moments, and that was a very dark one. And I hope we will not have a 7th situation or, worse than that, an accident to regret not having done what we knew was necessary at the time where we could still do it.

Dr. Williams: You refer to this as dynamic, and it strikes me as a very challenging dynamic where, on the one hand, you recognize your personal agency, your personal responsibility, and the IAEA’s role in this, while at the same time, as you said, you aren’t trying to get into solving this crisis.

And I’m curious if you could say a bit about how you strike that political balance given all the diversity of members, contributors to the IAEA and that sense of responsibility that you feel. So basically how do you walk the political tightrope?

DG Grossi: Well, I think it is important to be aware of where countries are coming from, what their strategic objectives are while not discussing them or not having them on the table as part of the negotiation, but having clairvoyance in this regard: knowing what is behind countries’ positions and objectives.

Of course there are limits to everything, and when the IAEA – and it has happened in the past – when the IAEA has needed to call out behavior, non-compliance with obligations, it has done so. The incredible situation now is that we are doing it in the midst of a war. This has never happened before, but does this mean that we cannot do it? No, it shouldn’t. Sometimes when working on issues with my team and with experts, the argument is made it has never been done before. Well, yes. Have we ever seen a conflict like what we are having in Ukraine before? I don’t think so. Do we believe that the instruments we have are inadequate to deal with that? No, certainly not. So walking this political tightrope is inevitable.

You also need engagement – your personal engagement. You are there to assume the responsibility, which includes failing, maybe; which includes paying the price of your political, your personal capital to be on the line. But this is what is essential, is a clear – and here, you know, thinkers like you help a lot in our work. We read, we study, we analyze, we weigh what is at stake. But we know that we are not analysts. That’s not our role in the process, and we have to come with alternative solutions.

One of the things I always try to do is never lose the initiative, and that, in my professional life – you were saying that by your 35 – unfortunately, it’s close to 40 now – years of work in this, is that when you know what you need to do, you have to take the initiative. You have to be always putting forward alternatives. Nobody is going to do it for you. There is always going to be a good excuse not to do something.

So this is, I believe – in particular in a moment like this where we have all this multiplication of crisis – not to stay in awe in front of all these things, and on the contrary, show that the IAEA is going to respond. The IAEA is not going to stay away from things. The IAEA is going to be deployed all over Ukraine if the facilities in Ukraine are a danger. And then the price tag for doing some folly is much higher than it would be if the IAEA would be – or its director general would be treating from the Danube on what is going on.

Dr. Williams:

Thank you for that. Also thank you for – it sounds like an openness on your part and at the agency to outside ideas and to solutions wherever they come from. It’s always nice to hear, as a think-tanker, that people read think-tank reports. So that’s always – that’s helpful.

I want to shift to AUKUS, if we can.

DG Grossi: Yes.

Dr. Williams: There’s a story in Reuters in September reporting that the IAEA was, quote, unquote, “satisfied” with U.S., U.K., and Australian engagement and cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. At this stage, would you say you are satisfied with U.S., U.K., and Australian engagement, and just really any reflections on the agency’s role and engagement with U.S., U.K., Australia in the AUKUS agreement thus far?

DG Grossi: Well, again, we are breaking new ground – all of us, including the AUKUS countries, and they know it. They know it. And for these, I’m grateful because they know they have an enormous responsibility here because we all sustain the non-proliferation regime, and we know that even if what is being attempted by the AUKUS countries exists and figures within the catalog of available options, it is in the – you have the possibility to do this, this has never done before.

Again, going back to my previous comment, it doesn’t mean that it cannot be done. It can be done, but it will require an enormous effort on everybody’s side because, again, we have to think of a level playing field, we have to think of observing the rules in a manner that is applicable to all. And we have to think of a technological option that requires – and this is the wisdom of the legislator here – requires some special action because what is going to happen is relevant. A country is going to exclude big amounts of nuclear material at very high levels of enrichment from our inspectors. So our obligation and their commitment is there to make it so that we can account for the last gram of that material. And we know it is technically possible but that it will require a big effort because there are technological issues. You have to think that, according to what we learned yesterday, the United States will be selling incredibly sensitive technology around which there are many restrictions, confidentiality, classified information – most of it if not almost all is involved.

Australia is going to receive it. There are going to be facilities that are going to be hosting these boats, et cetera, et cetera. And we have to be able to provide the technologically sound answers to that. If we don’t do it, then there is a risk. There is a big risk to the non-proliferation regime.

So this is why I’ve said in these quotes that I was satisfied to see that these countries were listening to us, that they understood from day one that what they were doing was – in the literary sense of the word and not as an adjective – extraordinary, out of the ordinary, which demands out of the ordinary measures, out of the ordinary behavior, out of the ordinary understandings among us. So the bar is set as high as it possibly can in term of this.

People say, well, if this happens, other countries will want that. I don’t know. I don’t know. That may or may not happen. By the way, there is another country that has already invoked this possibility, so it’s not the first.

The letter I got yesterday from Her Excellency Ms. Penny Wong, the foreign minister of Australia, is not the first I received in this regard. So the agency is already embarked – to use a naval analogy – in this thing.

It’s going to take an effort. I believe that if we put the best of all of us, we can do it. But of course, we will have to go through it. I cannot – and I think nobody would expect me to – say now, it’s going to be fine. We have a lot of work to do. The conditions are there. I see the political commitment. I see the seriousness.

You heard President Biden yesterday. You heard Prime Minister Albanese with whom I have spoken about it. We heard Prime Minister Sunak, as well. They are aware, and their teams are also ready.

It’s a tall order. We have to work. There is a lot of work ahead of us.

Dr. Williams: Thank you for that, and just – and so you said that you were satisfied that these countries are listening, that they understand the seriousness and the extraordinariness of it, and responsibility.

DG Grossi: Yes.

Dr. Williams: So to follow up on that, the IAEA statement on AUKUS mentioned Foreign Minister Wong saying that they would be requesting the agency to commence negotiations on Article 14 of Australia’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.

I was wondering if you have any sense – what is the timeline for this?

DG Grossi: Well, I think the timeline shall have to adjust to the timely delivery of the boats. We’ll have to be ahead of that – well ahead of that. So this is why this is so complex. We will have to work in synchronicity – the legal, the technical teams with the supplier here in the United States, and with Australia. And mind you, the work has started. We already received preliminary design information.

The safeguards mechanisms and commitments are so that you have a set of obligations that need to be fulfilled as time passes. So the process has started, and then we are going to be starting this interaction.

Safeguards negotiations are very technical, they are complex. Normally they take some time, but here we have some time pressure, of course, and we have to deliver in time; otherwise, let me remind you – and I think the countries are aware of this – otherwise it will not be possible for the agency to say OK.

And as I said in the statement that was issued today – earlier today – the board of governors has to look at it, take appropriate action. I think the process is a model of transparency – the process. We have to fulfill it with content, with real content. But the process is there, and there is everything we need there in the catalog of measures. Now we have to fill in the blanks.

Dr. Williams: Great, thank you.

One last question from me, and then I’ll be opening it up to the audience, so get your questions ready.

This question – so the key issues that are on the agency’s agenda at the moment – Ukraine, Iran, AUKUS – these are obviously taking place during a climate of great power competition, geopolitical instability.

You’re the head of a technical agency. How do you – how do you manage the current political environment? And as you look ahead to your next four years as DG, what’s concerning you the most right now?

DG Grossi: Well, I think the technical nature of the IAEA is in its configuration. It should never be an excuse not to assume the legal and political responsibilities that come with it. The agency expresses itself in a domain which is technical, but it’s based on a political and legal commitment stemming from that 1953 idea, all right, and which was reflected in a body of law. So this is one thing which is important.

The next few years will be years of a mix of reaction to crisis, but also – also and very importantly, enabling possibilities for the international community, and this is very, very important. When we deal with the energy security crisis; when we deal with the decarbonization of the energy mix in the world; when we deal with all these other activities where nuclear science and technology are real answers to needs that we have as an international community, I take these as equally important – not less or more – equally important in this mix.

You and I have worked on NPT issues, and we have discussed – and I think the audience are intrinsically linked with nuclear science and technology and the strategic side of the agenda. So my impression, my aspiration is that we start to move the needle. We start to move the needle in a direction that will make a difference.

When I see what happens in the world in terms of access to radiotherapy, I say to myself that this is obscene in terms of lack of access. And we need to make a difference. We need to make a difference. It’s not impossible at all, and we need to take this seriously. This is not the price for countries to accept safeguards, for god’s sakes. This is part of the ethical, moral responsibility to deal with nuclear science in a responsible way. And the IAEA has not been able to be that yet.

So I think these four years ahead of us are so exciting, Heather, because if we get to realize the expressions of safeguards in this way that we just described it – in naval propulsion that – it’s applicable to ice breakers, for example, as well, and to other means of transportation. And if we do the other thing, then it will be a good four years.

Dr. Williams: Well, as you said, you’re an optimist, so I’m fully confident you can achieve all these things. So we’ll check back with you in four years and see how it’s looking.

So I’ll open it up and we’ll take a couple of questions from the room, so we’ll take the gentleman in the front row here first. If you could please introduce yourself when you ask your question.

Question: Oh, sure. Peter Semler of Capital Intelligence, CI Ukraine.

My question goes to Mr. Ambassador Grossi. We have a – the nuclear plant, which is I believe six Chernobyls. What is the situation on the ground today? What needs to be done? And what else is the agency looking at protecting other nuclear plants in Ukraine, but also possibly Russia and the border? I mean, this is the most serious nuclear threat in our lifetime.

DG Grossi: Do you mean Chernobyl and the other plants?

Question: Bigger, then. So we have potentially six Chernobyl accidents in Europe. I mean, this is a lose-lose for everyone. So what’s the position on the ground on the Ukraine plant – Zaporizhzhia? And what are you planning to do to protect the other plants in the area?

DG Grossi: Yes, yes. Well, thank you for the question.

On Zaporizhzhia, of course, the issue is – well, we are there. We have ISAMZ, which is our mission. Our experts are there and have been there already six rotations, which is incommensurately important because we not only are there to inform, which is in and by itself, a huge gain for all to be able to have impartial eyes informing what’s happening or what’s not happening.

At the same time, we engage very actively with the operators there. We are involved in the – or are able to express our views on decisions that have to do with the operation of the plant. We put questions – I mean, we – by virtue of being there, we can weigh, in a certain sense, on what is going on there. My goal is to have a political commitment to avoid an accident. That is my most important goal there, although we are going to stay performing all these other functions.

The other facilities, when the war and the raids over vast areas of the Ukrainian territory started over the past few months – I mean, towards the end of the summer and beginning of the fall, President Zelensky requested me to deploy in all the other facilities, which we did. I think here there is a combination of a technical assistance function and also the very relevant, symbolic, historic fact that the IAEA flag is flying atop these facilities of a country at war – thinking about things that are happening now and we could never imagine before. And we have our people there, and so the international community knows, so we can be on alert on anything that may be happening.

We do have also technical missions, technical activities. We performed a number of assessments before coming to them. Each facility has different issues, safety-wise and security-wise, and we are working together with Ukraine to solve them through the presence of our experts there.

Dr. Williams: Thank you. Another question from – in the room, Ashley up here in front, please.

Question: Hi. Thank you.

I’m wondering if you could identify the key impediments standing in the way of the IAEA being able to actually implement this safety and security zone in Zaporizhzhia.

DG Grossi: Well, I think it’s no surprise that it’s difficult to get to any kind of commitment when you have war, and in particular, in this area, you have active combat ongoing. It’s the frontline, literally. I’ve been there, so on one side of the river it’s the Ukrainians; on the other side of the river is the Russians. So it is war in all its graphic strength that you can see. It’s palpable.

So when you put ideas on the table and concrete proposals involving certain commitments and behaviors, it is obvious that it is not going to be easy. This negotiating table is a bigger one now with military. When I go to Moscow, or to Kaliningrad, or to anywhere – or when I’m in Kiev with my Ukrainian natural interlocutors, I have military in front of me. I have diplomats as well, and I have nuclear people, and I have legal experts, but I have, unfortunately, an ever-growing number of people in green in these negotiations. So these conversations, which are of course confidential by nature, have lots of ingredients having to do with the military activity ongoing there and how different options and possibilities would be affecting these activities.

So this is why it is not as straightforward as it could be. One could ask oneself the question whether it should be straightforward – I mean, don’t shoot at the nuclear power plant. But of course there are a number of associated consequences that need to be weighed.

That being said, I’m frustrated, but I don’t dismay. I continue – I’m very stubborn.

Dr. Williams: From online – we’re getting quite a few questions about Russia, so I’m going to group some of these together.

DG Grossi: OK.

Dr. Williams: One of the questions is about whether or not the war in Ukraine has impacted Russia’s cooperation with the IAEA on issues beyond Zaporizhzhia, but then also a question about what role, if any, Russia and China have been playing in the JCPOA, and if you believe that they would assume a greater diplomatic role if Iran does enrich up to 90 percent.

DG Grossi: Well, to start with the last part, I would say, you know, Russia, China are part of the JCPOA partnership, if I can call it like that, still. And I think they have been – with their own national nuances, they have been playing a role to try to revive the JCPOA. So, you know, every country, of course, sees things differently, and quite obviously, with the growing tensions, and unfortunately this cleavage within JCPOA partners among the Western side of the group, and Russia, and China, this of course has had an impact in the dynamic of that process. But I would say they have been working, like the others, again, with their own particular approaches towards the – towards the common goal.

The other part is an issue that has been put on the table. Many believe that given the war and what’s ongoing, there should be a decreased presence of Russia, and some have gone to the extreme of proposing that they are expelled from the organization.

Well, these are international organizations that have procedures to do that. I cannot decide myself to exclude a country from policymaking organs or from any other instance in the organization. Of course this creates tensions. This is unavoidable that tensions exist. We have to deal with them. I have to be prudent in my decisions. I’m sending people, I’m sending teams of – not only to Ukraine or to – all over the planet I have teams of inspectors, so I have to exercise good judgment, you know, a clear idea of what is best suited and suitable to achieve the goals that we need and that we want to achieve.

But let us be reminded of the fact that, in the 20th century, we have many instances of armed conflict involving nationals of countries involved in these armed conflicts. And we need to protect the idea – the noble idea of the international civil service. That can sound naïve, and people talk about spies here, there, but it can be done. It must be done. And we have to – again, we have to navigate these waters as good as we can, always respecting our legal framework which is, at the end of the day, what will ensure that there is a guarantee of fairness.

Dr. Williams: Thank you for that. And very quotable, protect “the noble idea of the international civil service." I quite like that one.

I’ll take another question from in the room, in the back. Reja, please, introduce yourself.

Question: Sure. Hello. Thank you for – thank you so much for just your commitment to the non-proliferation regime. It’s truly inspirational. My name is Reja Younis. I am a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University SAIS.

And my question actually comes out of what you were saying about how a lot of what is going on is a reaction to the midst of war. And so I’m wondering what lessons you’ve personally taken away from Ukraine, from the Ukraine war in terms of future, grand strategic, long-term planning for the IAEA and future crises.

And my second question actually comes out of Heather’s question. She asked you what you are most concerned about, but what makes you most hopeful? So that’s something I’m curious about. Thank you.

DG Grossi: Well, I’m learning every day. I’m learning every day. I’m seeing things that I could have never imagined before I became director general. The need to – I would never imagine that I would be dealing with my technical experts, working in occupied territory, and doing that in accordance to terms of reference being agreed with the legitimate owner of the plant who does not have any authority on the plant, while juggling with a workforce of Ukrainians under Russian management – to cite just an easy example of what we are dealing with here.

So I’m sure that we are going to have lots – and we are already having lots of lessons that we are learning, that we are incorporating into our own planning, into our own decision making. We now have, I would say, a very big number of people working specifically on Ukraine in my Department of Nuclear Safety and Security because you have to think that behind these four or five brave women and men out there, there is a huge team working at headquarters and in some other places, sustaining their effort, communicating with them, helping them do what they need to do.

So, again, for the safety – for the Nuclear Safety and Security department, this has also been a tremendously disruptive – in the literal sense of the word – phenomena that led us to have to adapt. And we used to have – we have a day job, all right, which is the rest of the world. And we cannot – when we have a problem in another country we cannot say, sorry, come later; we are busy in Ukraine. So we have to be everywhere, and we can. Yes, we can. We can. Of course it takes longer hours. It takes more work, but we have to be an agency which is not only there for the easy times, especially we deliver a service, and we have to be there when the going gets rough, and to provide some comfort in the sense that you know that there are people there, and our Ukrainian friends know that there are people there watching, trying to help, trying to assist, and doing this kind of work.

You know, one very moving thing that we have with our missions is that the people there at the plant say, don’t leave us. Stay, stay. So we need to have this in mind all the time. So if that doesn’t make you change the way you work, what can? But we need, and we do it. There is – to go from this affirmations to realities, we are working on the Committee of Safety Standards, we are adapting, we are twisting, we are fine-tuning all these things.

The other part of your question was, in the face of those circumstances – well, this is what make me optimist, is that we have an agency that has reacted, showed it could react, and not like when Chernobyl happened or when Fukushima happened, go afterwards, do some report about it. Yeah, that’s OK. We always need reports. You know, the head of an international organization has to say that. We need many reports, yeah. But we need to be there when things are happening, and perhaps our reports will tell a better story.

Dr. Williams: Thank you. I think I’ll take one or two more. Right here, please.

Question: Thank you very much, Director General. I am Georg Sparber. I’m the Liechtenstein ambassador here in the United States.

My question goes back to your work in Zaporizhzhia because, I mean, aside of many things that the situation comes with, attacking a civilian nuclear power plant is also a serious violation of international humanitarian law. And of course we expect accountability as for the many other violations that happen in Ukraine.

Do you see a role for the IAEA to contribute to traditional processes, be it by Ukraine or international mechanisms, to provide accountability and to, in a way, strengthen the legal framework on which you rely, again, very much yourself, yeah, in the future? Thank you.

DG Grossi: Well, I would say when we go and do something like this, we do it with a certain idea, but according to certain terms of reference which, by the way, we agreed with Ukraine because it’s a Ukrainian facility. So we are centered on our nuclear safety and security mission. This is what we need to do. And perhaps if I manage to have something on the protection of the plant, we might be able to be reporting more accurately on some aspects more related to military activities at the plant.

That being said, it’s not in my nature to avoid problems when we can help, without mixing pears and apples. I will simply mention that when we could work, for example, for the release of some Ukrainian staff, we did it, and we managed to help. But this is very delicate, you may understand, and to be efficient we have to be prudent. But we are never indifferent. Let me put it like that.

Dr. Williams: And I think we’ll take another one. Michael – here, please.

Question: Good afternoon, sir. Lieutenant Mike Walker. I’m a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, also a PONI nuclear scholar.

My question is about the AUKUS agreement. So my understanding is that the first phase of that agreement will involve the transfer of the S9G power plant, which requires very high levels of enrichment, and then phase two will likely involve a totally new plant design.

I’m curious if you hold any views on that new plant design; like should we pursue lower levels of enrichment in that plant? That’s all.

DG Grossi: Well, there are two phases, like you are saying, and I think on the second one there are still many, many issues that need to be clarified. And we understand from the AUKUS partners that a number of technical details are still being defined.

We know that, irrespective of the actual technical elements in the design, which are – if you allow me – less important for us than the actual verifiability of the nuclear material which is what counts for me irrespective of the type of the reactor, the technical configuration. What I can tell you is that the second phase will be very demanding because it will imply a lot of activity in Australia. The Australians are going to start building – constructing submarines, perhaps they are going to get the reactor, but still there is going to be a number of facilities, storage places, et cetera, which are going to demand specific inspection activity. Why? Because the proliferation points are going to be much – I mean, more – more numerous than what you would have in a context of an acquisition of a ready-made, already constructed boat. So I see that the degree of sophistication of the approach is going to be growing as we move into the second phase.

But in any case, we should never forget about one thing, at least for us, from my perspective as from the IAEA. Our objective is to account for the material, so we need to have the tools, the safeguard tools that would allow us to do that, and then to look at the proliferation potential choke points or exit points to be able to secure those.

Dr. Williams: So the last question is going to be a gentleman in the middle here, and then we’ll wrap up. We only have a couple minutes left, but I wanted to squeeze in one more.

Question: Thank you very, very – thank you very much just for your remarks and comment about – useful to understand the nuclear-related issues.

My question is about North Korea. I think that the North Korean nuclear program is one of the major nuclear issues such as Ukraine, or AUKUS, and Iran you mentioned. Within this context, why do you see your – do you have any specific plan on North Korea’s nuclear issue, or how will the IAEA deal with North Korea’s nuclear development? Thank you, sir.

Dr. Williams: Had to get in North Korea.

DG Grossi: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Well, this is one very important issue, and as you know, unfortunately, since 2009, the IAEA inspectors were banned from DPRK. And we have been as absent. That doesn’t mean that we do not have a pretty good idea of what is going there. I have been trying – for those following this issue closely, I’ve been trying to have more in-depth reports on the situation there, on the – on what I’ve called a spawning nuclear program. In the past it used to be Yongbyon and some well-known facilities. Now this has grown into something much bigger, much wider, more complex.

As IAEA, we will take – eventually – verification mandate from member states, and so there is an assumption that there should be a political agreement. That doesn’t mean that there cannot be perhaps technical ways to engage at some point – nuclear safety, nuclear security. There are issues that we are exploring.

I am a firm believer on establishing contacts. I had good conversations with President Yoon in Seoul in this respect, and of course, the margin that we have there is quite limited, but I don’t think it is totally excluded that we can start doing some work there in not so long.

Dr. Williams: Director General Grossi, you have delivered a message of optimism despite a very difficult time. I think you have also delivered a call to action for all of us to work to uphold international agreements, to avoid complacency, and also to not be afraid of problems but really work to find solutions and to feed them into the policy process.

So I really want to thank you, in closing, for your leadership and commitment to these issues, and also to really thank you for the time that you’ve taken to come here, and offering a really fresh, firsthand account of your role and the agency’s role in the ongoing work. So thank you very much.

And everybody please join me in thanking Director General Grossi. (Applause.)

DG Grossi: Thank you very much.

(END)