Statement of NTI President Joan Rohlfing on the Signing of a Practical Arrangement between NTI and the IAEA

“NTI is pleased to deepen our institutional relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) through the signing today of a Practical Arrangement at the IAEA’s 65th General Conference. This Arrangement provides a framework for collaboration in a broad range of priority areas, including nuclear security, safeguards, and peaceful applications of nuclear technology.

Since our founding, NTI has proudly supported the IAEA in its mission to foster atoms for peace and development, and the agency’s work is more important today than ever as the world faces unprecedented challenges related to global security, climate change, and rapidly evolving technologies.

The IAEA’s interconnected purposes are mutually reinforcing: to foster peaceful uses of nuclear technologies and to verify, through its systems of safeguards, that those technologies are not used for military or nefarious purposes. As the peaceful applications for nuclear technologies expand—to save lives, improve agricultural yields, and counter climate change—and the use of nuclear energy spreads, the IAEA is being asked to do more. NTI encourages Member States to provide resources commensurate with the contributions the IAEA must make to continue its important work in the face of evolving and expanding needs.

NTI and the IAEA have collaborated on a number of important projects over the years, including Project Vinča, which facilitated the transfer of weapons-usable nuclear material from a civilian research reactor in Serbia for secure elimination in Russia; development of the IAEA Low Enriched Uranium Bank, which is now operational in Kazakhstan; and jumpstarting the Nuclear Security Fund, with NTI as one of the first contributors in our first year of existence.

We look forward to future collaboration and our continued support of the IAEA in its critical mission.”

Joan Rohlfing, President and COO
The Nuclear Threat Initiative