ShareKUWAIT: Kuwait Foreign Minister Dr Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah took part in the IAEA 66th general conference of 2022 in Vienna on Tuesday, giving a speech addressing both members and constituents alike. He began by thanking the members for their efforts to put together the conference and also thanked Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi and his staff for their efforts to uphold such a gathering in materializing the agency's goals.
He said that Kuwait had donated $200,000 for the final stage of the modernization of its nuclear applications laboratories in Seibersdorf, near Vienna, putting the total amount of Kuwaiti donations to the project since its launching in 2015 at $1.7 million. In the subsequent review of the 2021 yearly report of the agency, the minister expressed Kuwait's satisfaction with the path of cooperation taken between Kuwait and the IAEA.
"Cooperation has been exquisite on a wide variety of existing projects including nuclear technical applications in the oil industry, production of genetically modified crops, freshwater aquifers and cancer treatment, including research on the feasibility of using small reactors to produce electric energy," Al-Sabah said.
He went on to say that this has encouraged Kuwait to host a number of events relating to these efforts and to plan other regional activities this year in the areas of energy, agriculture, water, soil and food. Specialists will also be working on a variety of projects, such as Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action (Zodiac) and will also be hosting training programs early next year for members of the Asian and Pacific regions, to able to run sample tests by using the modern research vessel 'Al-Mustakshif', which is equipped with the latest research equipment.
On nuclear power and its uses, the Foreign Affairs Minister called on North Korean authorities to adhere to international treaties and pertinent Security Council resolutions, while also urging Iran to firmly stick to the UNSC resolution 2231 of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and sign the additional protocol to help provide a more credible source of trustworthy information on the current situation of the nuclear facilities in Iran.
He reiterated Kuwait's keenness on being part of a Middle East region, free of any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), in adherence to the 1995 treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT), while also stressing on the importance of the Zionist entity's compliance to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons party and subjecting all its facilities to IAEA's safeguarding protocols. - KUNA
