A nuclear arms race, like epidemics or environmental degradation, is a universal concern. No one can afford the luxury of being a mere spectator. It has global impact and requires collective action. In the aftermath of the deeply regrettable nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, more than at any time before, we need - all of us - to reaffirm our course of action: no nuclear tests; no new weaponization or deployment of nuclear weapons; a working system of global and regional security; and nuclear disarmament not a day too soon.
The options before us are either to regress rapidly into a nuclear abyss or to move forward towards a safer and more secure world. If we opt, as I hope we do, for the sane option, we must demonstrate that by actions and not by words. Concrete steps are urgently needed, not least of which are universal adherence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; active negotiation and speedy conclusion of a treaty prohibiting the production of fissile material for weapon purposes; construction of a functioning system of collective security that includes mechanisms to settle regional tensions; and an accelerated programme to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.
As the head of an international organization mandated to promote non-proliferation and to act - in the language of the Statute - "in conformity with the policies of the United Nations furthering the establishment of safeguarded worldwide disarmament", it is my duty to underline the grave danger of succumbing to the mirage of security through nuclear weapons; to underscore the need for maximum restraint to avoid incalculable outcomes; and to urge, in the strongest terms, that we do all we can to build a peaceful and secure world free from nuclear weapons.
I must emphasize that despite successfully managing the shortfall in resources this year, the overall TC funding situation remains unsatisfactory. The gap between "agreed" resources and actual resources realized at year end may reach $18.8 million or 26% of the total IPF. Some 56 countries do not contribute to the TC Fund. We are, therefore, dependent on a small number of Member States for the bulk of contributions. Any uncertainties or late payments by them severely diminish our capability to predict and plan accurately. I would urge, again, all Member States to pledge and pay their full share and I would underline, in particular, the importance of recipient States demonstrating their commitment by paying their contributions.
The Technical Co-operation (TC) Report for 1997 reflects the major shift in emphasis over the past two years to a results oriented approach across the full project cycle from planning to evaluation.
I am particularly pleased that regional efforts continue to bear fruit. In AFRA, specialized teams are being organized within ongoing projects to assess and solve a variety of problems in radiation safety and waste management, water management, dosimetry and calibration of radiotherapy equipment. For example, Egypt and South Africa have agreed to undertake systematic assessment and to fund experts to assist AFRA Member States to condition and store safely spent radium needles by the year 2000.
The proposed 1999 regular budget for Agency programmes is $219.3 million, which represents a 0.1 percent real reduction as compared with the 1998 budget. In connection with the overall budget setting process, I would like to underline a few important principles.
First, the budget is a policy statement that articulates the priorities of the membership with respect to the activities of the Agency. The budget is membership-driven. Second, for the Agency to fulfill its core functions, it must cater to the diverse needs and priorities of all its members. Third, it has been the practice - and a valuable one - to adopt the Agency programme and budget through a consensus process. Fourth, the final approved programme and budget is a combination of priorities and affordability, i.e. between the activities Member States see as their priority, and the resources they are willing to make available for the Agency to perform these priority activities. My fifth point is that budget reduction can be achieved through efficiency and savings, but there comes a point where the Secretariat must inform the membership that further cuts will hamper programme implementation. Since taking office I have initiated a process that is designed to ensure that the Agency is operating with maximum efficiency, and many actions are underway in that regard. But I think we are reaching the point where it seems that not much additional saving is possible. Thus, a call for the Agency to undertake additional new activities in a zero real growth budget, or a call for the current level of activities to be maintained in a zero nominal growth budget, will require some degree of programme cuts. Sixth, as has been observed by many Members of the Board, long-term reliance on extrabudgetary resources for the implementation of core, non-discretionary activities is an unhelpful trend which can distort the budget and programme setting process and could be seen to compromise the independence of the Secretariat and its ability to provide the best value for money. For the past decade the Agency has basically maintained the regular budget at zero real growth. For 1999, the Agency has to rely on extrabudgetary resources of some $35 million to permit programme implementation.
The problem of resources will be even further exacerbated when the time comes for the Agency to assume new tasks in the field of safety, security of nuclear material or arms control and disarmament. This is my last point on this subject. I would urge Member States to give serious consideration, now, to the overall question of how they might be resourced before the Agency is confronted with these tasks, or before they are assigned to new, more expensive, organizations. In this regard, consideration might be given to the establishment of a fund for arms control verification and security of nuclear material.
In addition to the seven States which have already signed an Additional Protocol and the Board's approval of the Additional Protocol with Jordan, the Board now has before it for consideration and approval six more Additional Protocols and one Safeguards Agreement. The six Additional Protocols are with the United States; with Canada; with Ghana; between the 13 non-nuclear-weapon States of the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and the IAEA; between France, Euratom and the IAEA; and between the United Kingdom, Euratom and the IAEA. The Safeguards Agreement is between France, Euratom, and the IAEA, pursuant to the obligations of France under Additional Protocol 1 of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
I am encouraged by the momentum which has been established, and I would take this opportunity to urge all States to continue and accelerate their efforts to conclude Additional Protocols. Since the March Board meeting, the Secretariat has held consultations with a large number of States (Belarus; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; the Holy See; Japan; Ecuador; South Africa, Switzerland and Uzbekistan). The Secretariat has also taken forward its earlier discussions with representatives of Russia, China and the Republic of Korea. As a result of all these consultations, we would expect to put further Additional Protocols to the Board for consideration at its September meeting.
The Safeguards Statement for 1997 concludes that, in fulfilling its safeguards obligations, the Secretariat did not find any indication that nuclear material which had been declared and placed under safeguards had been diverted for any military purpose or for purposes unknown, or that safeguarded facilities, equipment or non-nuclear material were being misused.
The SIR also reports, however, the continuing inability of the Agency to verify the correctness and completeness of the initial declaration of nuclear material made by the DPRK, and accordingly the Agency's inability to conclude that there has been no diversion of nuclear material. Since my last report in March, I regret to have to report that during the ninth round of technical discussions between the DPRK and the Agency's Secretariat there was no positive progress on key issues. Moreover, canning operations in respect to the irradiated fuel discharged from the DPRK's 5MWe Experimental Reactor, which were expected to be completed by May 1998, stopped in the last week of April at the request of the DPRK. By that time, about 97% of the fuel had been canned and is now under Agency seal. The completion of canning has been linked by the DPRK with progress in implementing the tasks foreseen in the Agreed Framework which, according to the DPRK, are behind the agreed schedule.
During the ninth round of technical discussions, the DPRK also informed the Agency team about the DPRK plan to construct and operate a heavy oil-fuelled boiler at the site of the 5MWe Experimental Reactor, a facility which is subject to the freeze. According to the DPRK, the proposed boiler would produce electricity and also steam for district heating. In connection with this, the DPRK intended to use existing equipment, such as turbines and generators, located at different buildings at the 5MWe reactor site. In a letter of 3 April, the DPRK asked the Agency to make the necessary arrangements to enable the operators to build the boiler. Following consultations with the United States, the other party to the Agreed Framework, the Agency responded that there was no objection to the construction and operation of the boiler for the purposes stated, on the understanding that Agency inspectors would be able to visit the boiler building and other related support buildings on the site on average twice a year to confirm that the new scope of operations of these buildings was not relevant to the purpose of the freeze. The DPRK confirmed this understanding on 22 May.
On 11 May, the DPRK requested the Agency to make the necessary arrangements at the Radiochemical Laboratory (KDF), including detachment of some seals, for inspection and maintenance activities required by DPRK technical regulations. In response, the Agency noted that during this work there should be no decontamination activities or introduction or transfer of solutions in the process system since such activities could alter information available about the DPRK's past nuclear activities. It was underlined that Agency inspectors would be observing the maintenance activities. Maintenance started on 29 May.
Turning now to the Agency's activities in Iraq, you will be aware that the IAEA submitted its latest six-monthly progress report to the Security Council on April 9, the text of which has been distributed as GOV/INF/1998/13 dated 22 April 1998. Following consideration of this report, the President of the Security Council issued a Statement on 14 May noting that the IAEA's investigation over the past several years has yielded a technically coherent picture of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme, although Iraq has not supplied full responses to all of the IAEA's questions and concerns.
In this statement, the Council affirms its intention to agree in a future resolution that the IAEA dedicate its resources to implement the Ongoing Monitoring and Verification (OMV) activities under resolution 715 upon receipt of a report from the Director General of the IAEA stating that the necessary technical and substantive clarifications have been made, including provision by Iraq of the necessary responses to all IAEA questions and concerns. In this regard, the Council requests the Director General to provide this information in his report, due on 11 October 1998, and to submit a status report by the end of July for possible action at that time.
An Agency mission to Iraq is planned at the end of June and will seek to further clarify those matters which are, in effect, at an impasse, in particular questions relating to the abandonment of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme.
It should be stressed again that the resolution foreseen by the Security Council will not foreclose the Agency's right to investigate any aspect of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme and to destroy, remove or render harmless any prohibited items that may be discovered in the course of such investigations.
To assist efforts to combat illicit trafficking, the Agency has concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the World Customs Organization to formalize existing co-operation such as training and information exchange. Further, a comprehensive review of the Agency document INFCIRC/225/Rev.3, which contains the Guidelines for the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, has been initiated.
The issue of safe transport of radioactive materials has been the subject of sometimes heated public debate over the last year or so. The Agency has long played a key role in establishing standards in this area. Recommendations on the transport of radioactive material were approved by the Board as early as 1961 and published as "Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials". The Regulations were developed in consultation and collaboration with the competent international organizations and have been regularly revised, most recently in 1996.
The Regulations are not legally binding on States, except where required by the Agency's Statute in relation to Agency projects. However, as the Secretariat's report shows, they are used de facto by many national authorities and have been widely incorporated into national and international binding instruments.
The Regulations are generally independent of the mode of transport and the safety level they provide is mainly based on the design of the packaging for the radioactive contents rather than on the mode of transport. They should, therefore, be viewed as norms which support and do not replace other multilateral and bilateral, binding and non-binding agreements on general aspects of transport. The Regulations require notification or approval by competent authorities before certain shipments are made into a country.
I would draw your attention to two key questions of substance which were raised during the work of the Technical Committee. First, do the Regulations in their present form continue to establish a sufficiently high level of safety or is a convention needed to convert them into legally binding standards? Second, do Member States wish to establish a mechanism to provide evaluations of the implementation of the Regulations by individual States? These questions clearly require further consideration and I encourage the Board to give some attention to them.
Last week, the Chairman of the International Advisory Committee which guided the conduct of the Study presented the results to the authorities and the public in the South Pacific region. Further, an international conference will take place in Vienna in late June to enable the wider scientific community to scrutinise the technical details of the Study and to benefit from an information exchange on the many issues learned during its execution.
The Mururoa Study is the fourth Study organized by the Agency, at the request of Member States, to provide objective international radiological assessments of radioactive wastes and residues from past military activities, including nuclear weapons testing and waste disposal practices. The purpose of these studies is to assess present and future conditions and possible hazards and, if the affected areas are to be inhabited or otherwise put to human use, to make recommendations on any remedial actions needed. I encourage Member States to make use of the Agency's expertise in this regard.
In this context, I wish to draw your attention again to the serious situation concerning radioactive waste and spent fuel management in the north-west region of Russia which I first raised at the December meeting of the Board (GOV/INF/828). Since then, the Contact Expert Group (CEG) for international co-operation in radioactive waste management projects in the Russian Federation has developed a consensus on seven urgent projects for international co-operation. I urge you to give positive consideration to assisting in these projects.
You may be aware that the plans by Slovak authorities to start-up the first unit of the Mochovce nuclear power plant have been the subject of discussion between the Slovak and Austrian authorities. At the request of both Governments, the Secretariat has expressed its readiness to assist the two Governments in the discussion of identified technical issues in accordance with an agreed time-frame. The role of the Agency will be to bring to the table technical expertise that could contribute to the discussion and clarification of the identified issues. While the responsibility for and implementation of safety measures will remain by necessity a national responsibility, the Secretariat will continue to do all it can to assist Member States in their efforts to enhance nuclear safety and maintain it at a very high level.
As is evident from the broad range of important issues on the Board's Agenda this week, the Agency is experiencing a period of intense activity. The challenge remains of how best to create the environment in which we can confidently exploit the full potential of the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Recent events have added to that challenge. We are now on notice from an ever more sceptical public opinion.
It seems that the euphoria of the "post cold war" era needs to be tempered by an objective assessment of what has so far been achieved. The score card, in my view, is mixed. The opportunities for international co-operation in the fields of arms control, regional security, safety and waste management, and sustainable development have not been fully exploited. I conclude that we have to redouble our efforts. For this we need the foresight to develop an overall strategy, clearly defined priorities, and a mechanism for adequate and assured funding. But, above all, we need the commitment to act together to bring about the required change.