He himself led the “toughest mission in history” of the international organization. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), announced on Monday that he and a dozen others were headed to southern Ukraine.
Destination: the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, occupied for several months by the Russian army that continues its offensive, more than six months after the beginning of the invasion of the country.
“The day has come, the IAEA mission to Zaporizhia is already on its way. We must protect the security of Ukraine and the largest nuclear plant in Europe,” the Argentine diplomat tweeted, adding that he was “proud to carry out this mission.” . that he will be at the plant at the end of this week.”
Arrived in 2019 at the head of the agency attached to the UN, this sixty-year-old has worked for a long time within the Argentine Foreign Ministry and with international organizations in Vienna.
An arrival amid the Iran-US crisis
Presented on the IAEA website as a diplomat “with more than 35 years of experience in the field of non-proliferation and disarmament”, his appointment as head of the organization is a small revolution in the sense that he is the first Latin American to lead it’s.
The organization founded in 1957 is not unknown to him, as he previously held the position of Deputy Director General and Chief of Staff between 2010 and 2013. He will then leave his bags at the Argentine Embassy in Austria. Now the IAEA’s sixth director general, Rafael Grossi, succeeded Japan’s Yukiya Amano in 2019, who held the post for almost ten years.
Three first years in which the Argentine had to work on a completely different diplomatic aspect in particular: the US-Iranian crisis of late 2019-early 2020 that comes just one year after the US withdrawal from the Vienna agreement decided. by Donald Trump.
Two and a half years later, it is clear that the time has come to relax and cooperate with Tehran. Rafael Grossi told our France 24 colleagues last week that he is optimistic about a new deal between Iranians and Westerners. The ball is now in the court of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who does not want to relaunch the deal without the closure of the IAEA investigation into traces of enriched uranium discovered at undeclared sites in Iran. Finally, the Israeli authorities are urging their American allies not to resurrect the Vienna agreement.
“All the technical aspects have been more or less resolved, it is a matter of political will,” the IAEA chief explained last week, judging that an agreement “is not far off.”
Zaporijjia, “an unprecedented situation” for the diplomat
Still with our colleagues from France 24, the IAEA director estimated that “the risks are real” in Zaporijjia, a plant occupied by Russian forces but still operated by Ukrainians.
If the Kremlin claims to have been waiting for this IAEA mission “for a long time” and considers it “necessary”, the Ukrainian operator Energoatom nevertheless stated that the Russian forces, “preparing for the arrival of the IAEA mission, put pressure on the personal plant to prevent him from revealing evidence of the occupier’s crimes”.
“An unprecedented situation” for Rafael Grossi, who plays the diplomatic card between Kyiv and Moscow and wants to “see what is happening and see if it is true or not.”
Beyond the inventory and the repairs that will be carried out inside the nuclear complex, the IAEA also intends to guarantee “a continuous presence” in Zaporijjia. A way for Rafael Grossi to score a major diplomatic coup when his term ends in 2023.
Source: BFM TV
