States Endorse IAEA's Work on Historic Day

The work of the IAEA and its central role in the global non-proliferation regime were acknowledged at a UN Security Council summit meeting held on 24 September in New York. Council members unanimously adopted US-sponsored resolution 1887 (2009), in which the IAEA's role in addressing nuclear threats and non-compliance with nuclear treaties was strongly reaffirmed.

In the resolution, Council members also expressed their strong support for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), calling on States which are not yet signatories to accede to it. They called on States to comply fully with their obligations and to set realistic goals to strengthen, at the 2010 Review Conference, all three of the Treaty's pillars - nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and access to the peaceful use of nuclear energy for all.

In calling for a world free of nuclear weapons, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the IAEA's pivotal role in creating such a future. "We must ensure that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has the resources and support it needs to implement its growing safeguards responsibilities. For too long, a divided international community has lacked the will, vision and confidence to move ahead. Together, we have dreamed about a nuclear-weapon-free world. Now we must act to achieve it," he said.

Addressing the 15-member Security Council, which IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also attended, US President Barack Obama spoke of a ‘shared commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons'.

"This resolution will also help strengthen the institutions and initiatives that combat the smuggling, financing, and theft of proliferation-related materials. It calls on all states to freeze any financial assets that are being used for proliferation. And it calls for stronger safeguards to reduce the likelihood that peaceful nuclear weapons programs can be diverted to a weapons program - that peaceful nuclear programs can be diverted to a weapons program," he said. The resolution is considered to be the Council's first comprehensive action on nuclear issues since the mid-1990s.

Background

Members of the UN Security Council on the occasion of the Summit on nuclear non-proliferation included: President Barack Obama of the USA, whose country holds the rotating Council presidency, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Presidents Óscar Arias Sánchez of Costa Rica, Stjepan Mesić of Croatia, Dmitry Medvedev of the Russian Federation, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of Mexico, Heinz Fischer of Austria, Nguyen Minh Triet of Viet Nam, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda, Hu Jintao of China, Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, as well as Prime Ministers Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, Yukio Hatoyama of Japan and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey. Also addressing the summit were Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham, Permanent Representative of Libya, and Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Agency (IAEA).