Ukraine has been elected to serve on the Board of Governors for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog said in a statement on Thursday, APA reports citing CNN.
“Eleven countries have been newly elected to serve on the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors for the 2023–2024 period” with Ukraine being one of them, according to the IAEA statement.
The newly elected Board members are Algeria, Armenia, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Indonesia, South Korea, Netherlands, Paraguay, Spain, and Ukraine, the statement said.
“The Board of Governors is one of the two policy-making bodies of the IAEA, along with the annual General Conference of IAEA Member States,” the statement read.
Ukraine has been elected to the board four times before. The last time it was a member of the agency's executive body was in 2009-2011, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the position would give Kyiv "real opportunities" to influence decisions "that are binding for all IAEA members and the entire international community.”
He said Ukraine would work to implement the first point of its 10-point peace formula, which is "nuclear and radiation security," and that Kyiv was focused on ensuring the "complete liberation" of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from Russian forces.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also praised the decision in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Its message is clear: Russia must withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel from the Zaporizhzhia NPP and immediately return it to Ukraine’s full control,” Kuleba wrote.
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