Chair,
Australia thanks the Director General for his report on Brazil’s naval nuclear propulsion (NNP) program. We also appreciate Brazil’s updates to the Board and its engagement and outreach on its NNP program.
We welcome the ongoing cooperation between Brazil, the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) and the IAEA on the application of special procedures for Brazil’s NNP program under the Quadripartite Safeguards Agreement.
All Member States are entitled to hold confidential bilateral discussions with the IAEA Secretariat. It is essential that the Secretariat remains the independent, competent, technical authority on developing and implementing safeguards arrangements. Member States should collectively protect this principle.
We recognise that the Agency’s role concerning NNP is foreseen in the existing legal framework and falls squarely within its statutory mandate. The Director General has confirmed that the Agency possesses the technical expertise to formulate safeguards approaches for NNP in accordance with the Statute.
To ensure the highest standard of non-proliferation, any such arrangement should enable the IAEA to fulfill its technical objectives throughout the lifecycle of an NNP program. We note the Director General’s advice to this Board that any such arrangement, once developed, will be transmitted to the Board for appropriate action – an approach we fully support.
We continue to welcome Board discussion of NNP programs under agenda items, placed on the Board’s agenda by the Director General as he judges appropriate. Such apolitical agenda items allow for technical, constructive discussion of this matter – informed by the Director General’s independent reporting.
We remain firmly opposed to proposals for parallel processes, as these risk undermining the Secretariat’s technical independence and exposing the implementation of Board-approved safeguards agreements to undue external political influence.
We welcome the Director General’s commitment to keep the Board informed and look forward to further updates as discussions between the IAEA, ABACC, and Brazil advance.
Thank you, Chair.