IAEA to conduct 3 scheduled inspections in Belarus

MINSK. June 25 (Interfax) - Belarus is preparing to receive scheduled inspection missions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under the safeguards agreement related to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Belarusian Emergency Situations Ministry's Department for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (Gosatomnadzor) said on Wednesday.

"The inspections will include the physical stocktaking of nuclear material and audits of record keeping," it said.

IAEA inspectors are to visit the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences' Joint Institute for Power and Nuclear Research Sosny, the Ecores enterprise, which is in charge of recycling, deactivating, and disposing of nuclear waste, and the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant.

Belarus and the IAEA signed a safeguards agreement related to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons on April 14, 1995. Gosatomnadzor acts as Belarus's competent agency of its state safeguards system and is in charge of facilitating IAEA inspections.

IAEA safeguards are an element of international safety system including a set of technical measures applied to nuclear installations and nuclear material used by countries. "The IAEA seeks to independently verify the observance of a state's legal obligation not to misuse its nuclear installations and not to divert its nuclear material from civilian use to create nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. States agree to the application of these measures through concluding safeguards agreements," Gosatomnadzor said.