Rafael Grossi | |
---|---|
6th Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency | |
Assumed office 3 December 2019 [1] | |
Preceded by | Yukiya Amano |
Argentine Ambassador to Austria | |
In office June 2013 –2019 | |
President | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Mauricio Macri |
Preceded by | Eugenio María Curia |
Succeeded by | Gustavo Eduardo Ainchil |
Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency | |
In office January 2010 –June 2013 | |
Personal details | |
Born | [ citation needed ] Buenos Aires,Argentina | 29 January 1961
Alma mater | Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina Graduate Institute of International Studies |
Rafael Mariano Grossi (born 29 January[ citation needed ] 1961) is an Argentine diplomat. He has been serving as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since December 3,2019. He was formerly the Argentine Ambassador to Austria,concurrent with Slovenia,Slovakia and International Organisations based in Vienna (2013–2019). [2]
Grossi was born into a Christian family. In 1983 he graduated from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina with a BA in Political Science,and in 1985 Grossi joined the Argentine foreign service. In 1997 he graduated from the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International Studies with an MA and PhD in History,International Relations and International Politics. [3]
Grossi began working in nuclear policy during a collaboration between the Argentine foreign service and INVAP. [4] Between 1997 and 2000 he was the President of the United Nations Group of Government Experts on the International Weapons Registry,and later became adviser to the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations on disarmament. [3]
From 2002 to 2007 he was Chief of Staff of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. [3] While working for the United Nations,Grossi visited North Korea's nuclear facilities and participated in several meetings with representatives of Iran to reach an agreement to freeze its nuclear program. [5]
During his work for the Argentine foreign service,he was the General Director of Political Coordination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship,Ambassador to Belgium and the Argentine Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva. [3] Between 2010 and 2013 he served as Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency,and that last year,President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner assigned him as Ambassador to Austria and International Organisations based in Vienna,concurrent also in Slovakia and Slovenia. [3] [6]
In September 2015,the Argentine government announced the nomination of Grossi as a candidate for Director General of the IAEA,with support from other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2016,however,the government of Mauricio Macri withdrew its support to promote Susana Malcorra's candidacy as UN Secretary General. [7] In 2016,he was the President of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. [8]
In 2017,President Macri announced that he would nominate Grossi for the presidency of the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to be held in 2020. [9]
In November 2017,after the disappearance of ARA San Juan,Grossi had the idea of reviewing the records of the hydro-acoustic stations of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) as an alternative to obtain clues about what happened with the submarine. He contacted Lassina Zerbo,the Executive Secretary of the CTBTO,and convinced him of doing such reviews. His efforts paid off:the agency subsequently reported on "an underwater impulse event" occurred near the last known position of the submarine by the listening posts on Ascension Island and Crozet Islands at 46°07′S59°41′W / 46.12°S 59.69°W . [10] [11] The remains of the ill-fated ship were found a year later, about twenty kilometers from the estimated position based on the cited records.
On August 2, 2019, Grossi was presented as the Argentine candidate to become the Director General of IAEA. [12] On 28 October, 2019, the IAEA Board of Governors held its first vote to elect the new Director General, but none of the candidates secure the two-thirds majority in the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors needed to be elected. The next day, 29 October, the second voting round was held, and Grossi won 24 of the 23 needed votes required for Director General Appointment, and became the first Latin American to head the organisation. [13] [14] He assumed office on 3 December 2019. [2] In August 2022, Grossi led a team of IAEA inspectors to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine. [15] [16] Since 2022, Grossi had been in the spotlight to obtain information on nuclear materials from Iran to re-negotiate the JCPOA. In September 2022, he continued to express concerns about traces of uranium found at three Iranian nuclear sites. Grossi told a press conference in Vienna that he is "under political pressure". Iran has long denied that it seeks nuclear weapons for defense purposes. [17]
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization within the United Nations system; though governed by its own founding treaty, the organization reports to both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, and is headquartered at the UN Office at Vienna, Austria.
Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei is an Egyptian law scholar and diplomat who served as the vice president of Egypt on an interim basis from 14 July 2013 until his resignation on 14 August 2013.
Iran has research sites, two uranium mines, a research reactor, and uranium processing facilities that include three known uranium enrichment plants.
Iran is not known to currently possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and has signed treaties repudiating the possession of WMD including the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran has first-hand knowledge of WMD effects—over 100,000 Iranian troops and civilians were victims of chemical weapons during the 1980s Iran–Iraq War.
Daniel Osvaldo Scioli is an Argentine politician, businessman and former sportsman. He currently serves as the Secretary of Tourism, Environment and Sports since January 2024. He was Vice President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007 and Governor of Buenos Aires Province from 2007 to 2015. From September 2022 to January 2024 he was Argentina's ambassador to Brazil.
Republican Proposal, usually referred to by its abbreviation PRO, is a political party in Argentina. PRO was formed as an electoral alliance in 2005, but was transformed into a national party in 2010. It is the major component of the Juntos por el Cambio coalition, and its leader is former Argentine president Mauricio Macri, who is the party's president since May 2024.
This is the timeline of the nuclear program of Iran.
Carlos Alfonso Tomada is an Argentine Peronist politician who served as the country's Minister of Labour, Employment, and Social Security from 2003 to 2015, having first been appointed by former President Néstor Kirchner, and reappointed by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Since 2020 he has been Argentina's ambassador to Mexico as well as Belize beginning the following year until 2023.
Yukiya Amano was a Japanese diplomat, who served as the Director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1 December 2009 until his death on 18 July 2019. Previously, Amano served as an international civil servant for the United Nations and its subdivisions.
Rogelio Pfirter is an Argentine diplomat who served as Argentina's ambassador to the United Kingdom and to the Holy See. He was the Director General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from 2002 to 2010.
ARA San Juan (S-42) was a TR-1700-class diesel-electric submarine in service with the Submarine Force of the Argentine Navy from 1985 to 2017. It was built in West Germany, entering service on 19 November 1985, and underwent a mid-life update from 2008 to 2013.
Renato Carlos Sersale di Cerisano is an Argentine career diplomat and economist. He was appointed Argentine Ambassador to the United Kingdom in January 2016 until March 2020. Prior to this, he had been Ambassador in South Africa from 2006 to late 2015.
Massimo Aparo is an Italian nuclear engineer, who started working as acting deputy director general and head of the Department of Safeguards, after Tero Varjoranta has resigned effective 11 May 2018.
Álvaro Alberto, Brazil's first nuclear-powered submarine, is the fifth unit of the Riachuelo-class based on the French Scorpène-class and is part of a strategic partnership signed between France and Brazil on 23 December 2008 that created the Submarine Development Program. The submarine was named after the former Vice Admiral and scientist Álvaro Alberto da Motta e Silva, who was the responsible for the implementation of the country's nuclear program. He also served as President of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission between 1946–47, and as President of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences for two terms.
Ing. Marta Žiaková, CSc. is a Slovak state official, diplomat and scientist in the field of nuclear energy. Since 2002 she serves as the chairperson of Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic. She ran for the position of IAEA Director General in 2019.
Normando Miguel Álvarez García is an Argentine politician and lawyer. He served as the Argentine ambassador to Bolivia between 2016 and 2019, during the presidency of Mauricio Macri. As of 2021, he serves as minister of work in Jujuy Province, under the governorship of Gerardo Morales.
Mohammad Eslami is the Vice President and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization in the government of President Raisi and was the Minister of Roads and Urban development and the Governor of Mazandaran in the government of Hassan Rouhani.
Lydie Evrard, born Lydie Xuân Thuy Nguyen, is a French engineer and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security at the IAEA since 2021. She is also the Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has become the center of an ongoing nuclear safety crisis, described by Ukraine as an act of nuclear terrorism by Russia.