VIENNA: The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog wants to appoint a new director general in October, shortening its selection process at a time of dangerous geopolitical frictions between Iran and the West.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano died last month, requiring a new leader at a time of global anxiety over the implications of last year’s US pullout of a 2015 deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.
The 35-nation board of governors last week named Romanian diplomat Cornel Feruta to head the agency temporarily.
Applications for the permanent post must be in by Sept. 5, the IAEA said on Thursday.
“The Board expects to appoint a Director General in October 2019 and, in any case, envisages that the person appointed will assume office no later than 1 January 2020,” it said.
That is an ambitious schedule for the 171-nation agency, which normally needs several months to agree on a candidate.
It reflects the urgency for stability at the helm of the IAEA at a time when President Donald Trump has reimposed US sanctions on Iran, and the fate of the 2015 deal, which the UN body has been overseeing, is unclear.
Russia’s Vienna-based diplomatic mission to international organizations tweeted that the modified procedure reflected “extraordinary circumstances and should not be considered a precedent.”
Some diplomats see Argentina’s ambassador to the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, as a likely new director general and he confirmed on Wednesday he would run for the job.
The board’s candidate for the four-year post must be approved by the IAEA’s general conference, which next meets from September 16-20.
Japanese diplomat Amano, who died aged 72 and had been expected to step down early because of illness, had held the position since 2009, through a period of intense diplomacy over Iran and a vain push for the IAEA to return to North Korea.
UN nuclear watchdog seeks fast choice of new head
UN nuclear watchdog seeks fast choice of new head
- The board named Cornel Feruta as a temporary head for the agency
- Applications for the post will be accepted till September 5
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
