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55th Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly 70th Session
Seventieth Session, 55th & 56th Meetings (AM & PM)
The General Assembly today adopted, by a recorded vote of 99 in favour to none against, with 10 abstentions (Bolivia, Chad, Cuba, Nicaragua, Russian Federation, Sudan, Syria, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela and Zimbabwe), a resolution on the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
By the terms of the draft resolution, previously adopted by consensus, the Assembly took note of the Agency’s report, as well as of numerous resolutions, including on the implementation of the agreement between the Agency and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the application of safeguards in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
It also took note of resolutions on measures to strengthen international cooperation in nuclear, radiation, transport and waste safety; nuclear security; improving Agency safeguards efficiency; strengthening its activities related to nuclear science, technology and applications; the application of Agency safeguards in the Middle East; and staffing the IAEA secretariat, among other matters.
In a world faced with energy and terrorism challenges, the IAEA, with its broad scope and technical expertise, remained indispensable, more than two dozen speakers told the Assembly as it debated the report.
Introducing the report (document A/70/219), Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA said that over the past year, the Agency had demonstrated its ability to respond quickly to crises. And, in the case of Iran was the sustained efforts of the IAEA, the P5+1 (China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United States and Germany), the Security Council as a whole, and Iran itself, which got the international community to where it was today.
Indeed, said the representative of Iran, the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, through negotiations based on mutual respect, signified a crucial step. After the final assessment by the Board’s Director General, he expected that all past and present issues would be resolved “once and for all” at the upcoming Board of Governor’s meeting on 15 December.
The representative of the European Union noted that the Plan’s full and sustained implementation required the application and subsequent ratification by Iran of the Additional Protocol to the Agency’s safeguards agreement. However, other challenges remained, he said, expressing deep concern with the protracted and serious challenges to the non-proliferation regime posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Syria.
The real nuclear threat in the Middle East, asserted Syria’s representative, was Israel, whose missiles could reach China’s borders. Those who did not recognize that reality wanted to open “illusory” fronts to forget the danger that country posed. The IAEA report mentioned the Syrian reactors at Deir Ez-Zoor, but the Director General had long known that Syria had made non-proliferation one of its national priorities, ratifying the NPT in 1968 and signing the safeguards agreement in 1992.
The representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea said the IAEA report mentioned its nuclear weapons in a discriminatory manner, and at the instigation of the United States, whose threat compelled the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to take “self-defensive action” by withdrawing from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
Other delegations focused on the IAEA’s technical cooperation programme. The representative of Ethiopia noted one project in his country under way, which aimed to eradicate the tsetse fly from the Southern Rift Valley regions. In the Philippines, the electron beam irradiation facility, which had been established with the Agency’s assistance, was now fully operational and was handling the grafting of abaca fibres to produce metal adsorbents and honey alginate for wound dressing, that country’s representative told the Assembly.
At the opening of its meeting, Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft expressed sincere condolences and deepest sympathies to the Governments and people of the countries that recently suffered “heinous” terrorist attacks.
“We mourn with those who lost their friends and loved ones,” he said, adding that the disregard for human life and human dignity displayed by groups such as Daesh, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Al-Qaida and others was “a mortal threat” to the values that brought the international community together at the United Nations. The world needed the United Nations to respond, but that response should be considered, comprehensive and sustained. Above all, it had to seek to advance a political solution to the conflict in Syria, he said.
The General Assembly then rose for a minute of silence.
Also speaking at today’s meeting were representatives of the Russian Federation, Kuwait, Ecuador, Pakistan, Japan, Cuba, Switzerland, Singapore, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, China, Iraq, Egypt, Jamaica, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Argentina, United States and Lithuania.
Delivering statements in explanation of vote were representatives of Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Nicaragua. The representative of Brazil introduced the resolution.
The General Assembly will meet again at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 18, to take up the appointment of the judges of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the United Nations Appeals Tribunal.
