IAEA Curtails Nuclear Inspections in Japan

The Japanese government unveiled that IAEA’s Integrated Safeguards to reduce the frequency of inspections in Japan’s nuclear facilities to less than half will go into effect from September 15.

The IAEA officially notified Tokyo of the reduction in inspections frequencies, saying, “Japan’s nuclear development is confined to peaceful use, and we reached the conclusion that Japan would not divert it for military use such as producing nuclear weapons.”

The foreign press reported that this decision made by the international agency aimed to focus its capacity on countries such as North Korea and Iran, which are suspected to be developing nuclear weapons, instead of reducing the monitoring of Japan that currently accounts for a quarter of all inspection activities.

Measures to reduce the frequency of inspections have been previously taken to Australia, Norway, Indonesia, and other countries that have research-purpose reactors, but Japan is the first of its kind to be on the list as a commercial nuclear developer.

Tokyo announced that in the case of light-water reactors, the current level of more than four sessions of inspections is expected to be decreased to two.

Over the past four years, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog undertook its verification process on Japan’s 107 nuclear facilities and more than 5,000 relevant sites, with its Board of Governors finally deciding in June to curtail the inspections in Japan.

The agency also recently removed Libya from the special inspection list after having completed a special investigation on Libya’s nuclear program.

IAEA’s Director General Mohamed al-Baradei said, “The inspection in Libya is now only a confirmation process, and I hope Iran, which is under investigation for suspicions of developing nuclear weapons, will follow suit.”

The agency had been monitoring the nuclear dismantling process of Libya since the nation agreed on giving up its nuclear program with the U.S. and Britain last December.

Won-Jae Park parkwj@donga.com