PanOrient News | Prime Minister Naoto Kan Meets IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano

Please Select Your Language : Arabic | Japanese

Diplomacy

Prime Minister Naoto Kan Meets IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Tokyo- (PanOrient News) Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan today received a courtesy call from Mr. Yukiya Amano, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA.) In the meeting, both agreed to cooperate further in containing the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

According to a statement by the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, Prime Minister Kan said in the meeting that the Government of Japan had announced the completion of Step 1 toward the resolution of the accident on July 19, and that as a result he considered that a hurdle toward resolving the accident had been overcome. The Prime Minister also said that the Government of Japan was going to continue working to resolve the accident by making continuous and concerted efforts, and that he wished to complete Step 2 at the earliest possible juncture. The Prime Minister assured Director General Amano that in the future too, the Government of Japan would continue to provide fast and accurate information to the international community including the IAEA in a transparent manner.

In reply to this, Director General Amano noted that although Prime Minister Kan has been subject to various reviews in the media, he could see very clearly that Prime Minister Kan had displayed leadership when he viewed the situation from outside Japan, and that he personally highly evaluated Prime Minister Kan’s efforts in response to the accident, according to the statement. Moreover, he said that he considered that international confidence in Japan has been increased as a result of the report of the Government of Japan to the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety held toward the end of June. Director General Amano also said that he welcomed the news that Step 1 had been completed and that he expected that the execution of Step 2 would also proceed favorably.

Prime Minister Kan stated that as he himself had announced at this year's G8 Summit, Japan wished to achieve the world's highest standard of nuclear safety based on what has been learned from this accident. Prime Minister Kan also said he appreciated that the IAEA is making various reviews in the area of nuclear safety, he stressed that the Government of Japan would cooperate with the IAEA including in the implementation of an "Action Plan", and he gave his assurance that the Government of Japan would continue to cooperate closely for the success of the international conference on nuclear safety, which has been scheduled by Japan and the IAEA for the second half of next year. In reply to this, Director General Amano said that the IAEA would continue to cooperate closely with Japan by making use of Japan's experience and actual performance shown in the area of nuclear safety, the statement said.

Later in the day, Amano met with Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto and reaffirmed cooperation toward an international meeting on nuclear safety Japan and the IAEA will co-host in the latter half of next year.

On Monday, Mr. Amano visited Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident site. TEPCO officials and personnel that were directly engaged in the response to the nuclear accident gave Amano eyewitness accounts of the accident and detailed the company's efforts to implement its "Road Map" to contain and stabilize the situation in the accident's aftermath.

Mr. Amano plans to attend an annual U.N. meeting on disarmament in the city of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, on Wednesday, and wrap up his weeklong Japan visit on Saturday.

PanOrient News