ISLAMABAD: The Inter­national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that Pakistan was fully implementing the agreed safeguard measures.

The Foreign Office in a statement said that IAEA’s Deputy Director General (Safeguards) Tero Varjoranta conveyed the nuclear watchdog’s satisfaction over the implementation of safeguard agreement.

“The DDG appreciated Pakistan-IAEA cooperation and conveyed the agency’s satisfaction at implementation of safeguard measures by Pakistan,” the FO said.

The IAEA’s safeguards system is a set of technical measures by which the IAEA secretariat independently verifies the genuineness of the declarations made by member countries about their nuclear material and activities.

Mr Varjoranta met Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry, the statement said, adding that the two discussed various issues of mutual interest covering Pakistan-IAEA cooperation, especially in the ‘safeguards’ domain.

Pakistan has been operating nuclear power plants under the IAEA safeguards for over 40 years now.

The government plans to increase nuclear power generation to 8,800MWe by 2030 and 40,000MWe by 2050 to meet the energy shortfall. A number of new nuclear power plants are planned under the Nuclear Power Programme 2050.

Pakistan has been seeking international assistance for its ambitious nuclear power generation plan under the IAEA safeguards.

Published in Dawn January 20th , 2015

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