Cairo - Hala Arafa - Broadcast:

Mr. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, received today, Thursday, 16/12/2021, Mr. Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who is currently visiting Cairo.

An official source in the General Secretariat of the League stated that Aboul Gheit welcomed the visit of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the headquarters of the General Secretariat and expressed the Arab League's support for the work of the organization and its distinguished role in promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including through the technical cooperation program that is of great interest to countries. Arabia.

Aboul Gheit also stressed the importance of the agency’s role in the field of nuclear verification through the strict and impartial implementation of the comprehensive safeguards system, calling for reliance on Arab competencies in the nuclear field to support the representation of Arab countries in the work force in the organization, as well as promoting the use of the Arabic language in it in line with the agency’s orientation Towards upgrading multilingualism in its devices.

The source pointed out that Aboul Gheit mentioned the decision of the IAEA General Conference of 2009 regarding "Israel's nuclear capabilities", which called for Israel, as a non-nuclear state, to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to subject all its nuclear activities and facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards. In this regard, the Secretary-General expressed concern about the continuation of these facilities outside the control of the Agency and the threat that this poses to peace and security in the region and at the international level. In the same context, he referred to the importance of dealing with the State of Palestine within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in line with its status as a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and a non-member of the United Nations.

The meeting also witnessed an exchange of views between the two sides on the Iranian nuclear file and the Vienna talks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or what is known as the nuclear agreement, in addition to the outcomes of the second session of the Conference on the Establishment of a Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East, as well as The tenth session of the NPT Review Conference, to be held in New York from January 4 to 28, 2022.

The source stated that Aboul Gheit stressed the importance of taking into account the concerns of Arab countries in dealing with the Iranian nuclear file, especially the destabilizing Iranian behavior in the region, stressing the need to address the shortcomings of the 2015 agreement, which dealt only with the nuclear aspect and allowed Iran to strengthen its Arab-rejected policy of interfering in internal affairs. for Arab countries.