Виступ делегації України щодо доповіді МАГАТЕ
Mr. President,
This year marked the turning-point in the history of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the memory of Director General Mr. Yukiya Amano for his wisdom and talent to run the Agency and his efforts in advocating and strengthening nuclear and radiation safety and nuclear security worldwide.
DG Amano was a visionary leader and an outstanding diplomat. His wisdom, forbearance and unwavering commitment to multilateralism contributed to maintenance of stability in modern nuclear order. We are especially grateful for his personal firm position regarding the Agency’s safeguards implementation in Ukraine, which proved that the IAEA platform will never be used for legitimization of Russia’s occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.
At the same time, Ukraine welcomes the decision of the IAEA Board of Governors to appoint Rafael Grossi as new IAEA Director General. We believe that this important mission will benefit from his empathy and energy.
We would also like to commend Acting DG Cornel Feruta for his excellent guidance, competence and leadership demonstrated during the transition period.
Mr. President,
Ukraine recognizes the Agency’s leading role in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. We reconfirm our support for the activities of the Agency aimed at strengthening the effectiveness and improving the efficiency of the safeguards system, and welcome the efforts of the Agency with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to military purposes.
Nowadays, we are facing the 6th year of Russian aggression against Ukraine. Such actions have significantly undermined the international efforts of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Russian invasion and occupation of parts of territory of Ukraine, including Crimea and the city of Sevastopol manifest in rapid transformation of the Peninsula into a huge military base threatening security and stability in the entire Black Sea region and beyond.
Despite the continued military aggression from a nuclear-weapon State, Ukraine remains fully committed to its obligations under the NPT in general and the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement in particular. The should clearly understand that any of the international organizations, where the rule of law prevails, will never be impudently used to recognize any alteration of the status of Crimea.
We recognize the considerable progress in the overall safeguards implementation approach which has undergone the way from a system focused on verifying declared nuclear material and drawing relevant safeguards conclusions to the system that assesses the consistency of all information regarding a state’s nuclear program and to draw safeguards conclusions for the state as a whole. We fully support the IAEA independence in this regard.
Ukraine is clear in its position that the Agency should remain the one and only authority to draw relevant conclusions. Those conclusions should be based on the collected and processed information from a wide range of sources but judged only from technically credible data.
Mr. President,
We welcome the fact that the IAEA Annual Report for 2018 fully complies with the norms of international law, the IAEA Statute and respective safeguards agreements.
To this date there is no single IAEA document which in any way recognizes the Russian occupation of Crimea. This position of the IAEA has been made very clear on a lot of occasions and this meeting is no exception. The IAEA continues to implement safeguards in Ukraine in accordance with Ukraine’s comprehensive safeguards agreement and the additional protocol thereto, and consequently all facilities and nuclear material in Crimea continue to be covered by such instruments. This is clearly stated in the IAEA Annual report which we take note of today as well as all previous reports issued from the start of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2014.
Having said that, Ukraine expresses its support of the current draft resolution “Report of the International Atomic Energy Agency” introduced by the Delegation of Sweden and co-sponsors it.
Thank you, Mr. President