VIENNA: Qatar has underscored the utmost importance of the topic of safety and security from nuclear incidents due to the current global geostrategic tensions.
This came in the statement delivered by Ambassador of Qatar to the Republic of Austria and the permanent representative to the United Nations and international organizations in Vienna, HE Jassim Yacoub Al Hammadi, before the session of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), being held in Vienna.
Qatar warned of the perilous cyber-attacks to disrupt the safety system in power reactors and other factors that trigger forging national and global efforts to counter these threats.
Qatar underscored its support for the IAEA-led efforts to continue to bolster safety measures in nuclear power plants, as well as alerting and addressing emergency cases, in addition to assisting the member states to build capacities and protect people and the environment from harmful radioactive materials.
Additionally, Qatar urged all states that possess nuclear facilities, especially in the Middle East region to promptly join the international conventions on nuclear safety to increase confidence in the reliability of operating systems in reactors owned by countries and ensure the enforcement of international measures of nuclear safety on those facilities, warning that any potential nuclear incident will have a long-term and transboundary impact on people and environment, especially the water sources.
Qatar has been engaging with the IAEA since last year to set a work schedule that primarily aims to review the role of the State of Qatar's institutions in radioactive and nuclear safety, in pursuit of modernizing and reinforcing them following the latest IAEA-safety standards, the statement read.
Qatar said that it is hopeful about the transition to the implementation period after it has submitted the required information to IAEA experts to establish an overall national regulatory framework based on the state-of-the-art IAEA-safety standards, along with the best international practices.
In its statement, Qatar pointed out that it intends to carry out a national project that purposefully bolsters surveillance control and implements an effective programme to handle the radioactive waste
