MOSCOW: UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi held more talks with Russian officials Friday over safety concerns at two nuclear power plants threatened by the fighting between Moscow and Kyiv.
He has already issued warnings over the situation at both the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kursk power plant, near to where Kyiv has mounted its incursion into Russia.
Grossi met the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likhachev in Kaliningrad, after visiting the Zaporizhzhia plant in southeast Ukraine this week and the Kursk plant the week before.
He met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday.
“The times remain very difficult,” Grossi told Likhachev, Russian news agencies reported.
The situation at the Kursk power plant — some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Kyiv’s forces — was “worrying,” he said.
But both officials said the plant’s functioning was stable, and Grossi again urged both sides to refrain from attacking power plants.
“I said this in Zaporizhzhia, I said this in Kyiv and now I say this in Kaliningrad: power plants can never be legitimate targets in an armed conflict,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of trying to strike the Kursk plant, without providing evidence.
Likhachev said Russia “expects an adequate response” from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk is now a month long, with Kyiv laying claim to dozens of Russian border settlements.
Putin said this week that Moscow has “gradually” started to push out Kyiv’s forces from Kursk.
The Zaporizhzhia plant fell to Moscow in the first days of its offensive in 2022.
UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns
https://arab.news/9gget
UN nuclear chief in Russia reiterates safety concerns
- He has already issued warnings over the situation at both the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kursk power plant
- Grossi met the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likhachev in Kaliningrad
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
