UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric also said on Monday: “The UN Secretariat has no authority to block or cancel the activities of the IAEA.”
Dujarric was responding to a Russian accusation that UN security had blocked a visit by IAEA inspectors to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which Russia seized in March following its invasion of Israel. Ukraine on February 24.
He said that “in close contact with the IAEA, the UN Secretariat has assessed that it has the necessary logistics and security capacity in Ukraine to be able to support any IAEA mission at the nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Zaporizhzhia from Kyiv”.
But he added that Russia and Ukraine must agree. The two countries have declared that they welcome the visit of IAEA inspectors. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said he was ready to lead a mission and called on Russia and Ukraine to cooperate.
Moscow, Russian news agencies quoted a senior diplomat as saying that no such mission could pass through Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, as proposed by the United Nations.
“Imagine what it means to pass through kyiv – it means that they arrive at the nuclear power plant from the front line,” Igor Vishnevetsky, deputy head of the nuclear proliferation and arms control department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters. foreign affairs, quoted by the RIA press agency.
“This is a huge risk, given that the Ukrainian armed forces are not all made up in the same way,” he reportedly said.
Russia describes its actions in Ukraine as a “special military operation” and accuses kyiv’s military – and much of its political structure – of being indebted to nationalists and “Nazis”.
The Tass news agency quoted Vishnevetsky as saying that such a mission had no mandate to deal with the “demilitarization” of the plant, as demanded by kyiv, because it could only deal of “compliance with IAEA safeguards.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday demanded an end to military activities around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex, as Moscow and kyiv accused each other of bombing the area.
Guterres spoke to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday about security conditions at Zaporizhzhia operations, the United Nations and Russia said.