Davos:
India’s nuclear reactors are “completely protected” because it applies the best ranges of security requirements to its civil nuclear programme, the chief of worldwide nuclear watchdog Worldwide Atomic Power Company (IAEA) has advised NDTV.
In an interview on the sidelines of Davos 2025, IAEA director common Rafael Mariano Grossi was requested how protected India’s nuclear reactors are. ”Completely protected. India applies to its civilian nuclear programme the best ranges of internationally agreed and IAEA established nuclear security requirements and safety steering,” he replied.
On India’s fast-breeder nuclear reactor programme, the primary of which is being developed at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, Grossi stated, “It could possibly be an attention-grabbing add-on to its fleet.”
India has imposed a voluntarily moratorium on nuclear explosive testing because the Pokhran exams in 1998. Requested if New Delhi can be inside its rights to check if China or Pakistan went forward with nuclear exams, Gross replied, ”Our place and the place of the worldwide group is that we must always transfer to a common ban on nuclear testing so we hope that there will not be a necessity for additional testing, neither within the subcontinent nor elsewhere.”
To a query on whether or not India ought to be part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which at the moment has 48 nations as its members, the IAEA chief stated, ”I’ve been President of the Nuclear Suppliers group and I interacted very actively in attempting to carry this to an equitable resolution, together with with different nations which had related aspirations. My interactions, even with Overseas Minister S Jaishankar, had been extraordinarily helpful. We had been very shut on the time to a great final result.”
“After all, there’s a greater, wider political scene which enters into the state of affairs in relation to that. That is for the members to resolve,” he added.
To a query on whether or not the India-US civil nuclear deal is about to attain its full potential as Washington DC tries to barter the legal responsibility clause that may allow it to construct reactors in India, Grossi stated it was for India and US to resolve. What I can say is that the Indian civil nuclear programme is among the many greatest and most various worldwide. “India has each [nuclear] know-how and masters each know-how in an excellent approach. I imagine that with the present enlargement and curiosity in nuclear vitality, we’re one of the best place to see these ranges of cooperation and commerce develop,” he stated.
The IAEA chief additionally took questions on the state of affairs in Ukraine and stated there have been a number of events when the watchdog feared a nuclear accident. “Zaporizhzia is true within the center, on the frontline, extraordinarily fragile. It has been topic to shelling, and extra often, blackouts. This implies lack of cooling operate might need led to a nuclear accident. We’re counting it by the day when we now have conditions like this. It is among the greatest challenges that IAEA faces,” he stated.
On the West Asia state of affairs, Grossi stated that whereas the nuclear watchdog doesn’t have any proof that Iran is constructing a nuclear weapon, it has accrued huge ranges of enriched Uranium which is “very, very shut” to weapon-level grade. He additionally stated the IAEA haven’t acquired Tehran’s full cooperation in inspections and in clarifying its questions.