The President of King Abdullah City for Atomic & Renewable Energy Dr. Hashim Abdullah Yamani, who presided over the Kingdom’s delegation to general conference of the international agency for atomic energy delivered the Kingdom’s speech at the opening of the 59th session of the conference on Monday 1st of Dhu Al-Hijjah 1436H (14th September 2015G) at the Agency’s headquarters in Vienna, where he pointed to the big interest the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pays to atomic energy as a vital technology for many peaceful applications which benefit the Kingdom and human kind and support its growth and progress as an important assisting factor for sustainable development taking into consideration the importance of following best practices and safety procedures.
He also referred to K.A.CARE achievements in the area of forming the regulatory body in the Kingdom, as it has completed the preparation of the interim visualization of the body’s structure and the steering plan for the whole components of the regulatory body in the areas of security and safety and guarantees and the rules and local regulations being prepared to organize the nuclear sector in the Kingdom, in addition to the regulatory review and safety evaluation then granting a license for the establishment of the first research reactor in the Kingdom, which is a low energy reactor in Riyadh City where King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology is the operator of this reactor, which aims principally at training and qualifying national cadres.
In the area of international cooperation Dr. Yamani referred to the efforts exerted currently and in the past by the Kingdom to expand its cooperation and partnerships with advanced countries in the areas of the peaceful use of atomic energy which enables it to expand its choices from the one side and the achievement of transparency and competitiveness from the other side. This year witnessed the signing of several agreements and bilateral memorandums of understanding with a number of countries amongst which new cooperation agreements with United Russia and Finland in addition to a number of new memorandums of understanding in different subjects with a number of agencies/bodies in each of France, Korea and China.
He also referred to the Kingdom’s physical and technical participation in the activities of the international agency for atomic energy as the Kingdom has paid all its financial obligations in full in addition to the voluntary donations related to the technical cooperative program for the year 2015.
The head of K.A.CARE also referred to the Kingdom’s aspirations to the full implementation of the comprehensive joint working plan signed between the group’s countries (three plus three) and Iran which was adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations by virtue of decision 2231 (2015) for the purpose of ensuring the peacefulness of the Iranian nuclear program and to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms in any way, he also demanded to show maximum transparency in implementing the agreement before the international community. Despite the fact that the agreement was signed between specific group of states but its results are of interest to all states mainly middle eastern states, he also mentioned that the Kingdom sees this agreement as a fraction of bigger ambition and higher goal to make the middle east a region free from weapons of mass-destruction.
