 Thank you very much, very good to see you all, thanks for coming. So the board has already started and of course at the heart of it we will have a discussion on the situation in Ukraine, but also on other important issues like Iran and naval nuclear propulsion, which is of course of great interest for our countries. Let me perhaps before we start and since I believe it's important to have a clear understanding of the technical situation at Saporizhia to give you an overview of where we are and what are the next steps that we will be having. So maybe we can have the first slide, I should be the one putting them. Okay, so well as you know the agency has been working on this very serious issue. Number of days now I was there a few days ago on a visit that we considered very important because of the findings and the recommendations that we were able to come up with, but also because as a result of it we were able to establish a permanent presence by the agency at the plant and we have experts there which has resulted in and we have seen it already and in the context of what I'm going to say now maybe, we have seen that how useful that was in getting very timely information, very precise information in particular on the situation on the external power supply which I'm going to try to explain now. You also know that I have proposed my briefing to the United Nations Security Council a few days ago the urgent establishment of nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant and I have started consultations on this issue with both sides, with Ukraine of course my natural partner since it's a Ukrainian plant, but also with Russia which is an indispensable part of the discussion since they are in control of the facility. So what you can see here is a general overview of the situation. You have here the nuclear power plant with the reactors here in sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 here. Then a Negrodar which is the village, the city, the satellite city where most if not all the staff lives and then one thermal power plant here in the middle which is important in the context of what I'm going to explain to you now because there are two things that we are looking at as matters of great urgency. The first is of course the shelling because the shelling continues and the direct impact on the reactors, on associated facilities in particular the spent fuel areas where the spent fuel is located could have very serious consequences. That is one but the other that could cripple the normal operation of the plant of course is the supply of external power. So if this works well I hope I would have no. Can you change it please but I don't know how this works. Okay so thank you very much. So this is, this describes the problems that the plant has been having. You may have seen that in the updates that we've been having we were describing the fact that the external supply was gradually being lost and when we referred to that we were mainly referring to the lines that you see in green here with the red crosses. This is South Donbasska, Zaporizhka, Kachowska and Dipnowskaya which were in sequence being crippled or damaged or disconnected from the plant thus depriving it from its normal source of external power. Of course as you know in nuclear and nuclear safety has what is called several layers of protection and defense which means that you have always alternative sources, alternative solutions for when a problem like this may happen. One of those in this case is this this thermal power plant which is here. I could see it when I was driving in is quite a big one that feeds electricity here. What we had the other day and you may remember that I issued a statement was a situation when the switch yard that you see there described was hit and when that happened that thermal power plant stopped feeding power to the plant and to an Ergodar leading to quite a dramatic situation because the village was the city of an Ergodar was in complete blackout no water no electricity nothing no sewage so this you can imagine that has also a very serious impact on the safety of the plant because most of the employees live there and many could not come to the plant you have to man this this huge nuclear power plant so I don't say it as a as an add-on just to add more you know atmospherics to my description but rather as a very important element that was affecting the normal operation but the problem there the main problem we had there was of course the fact that the the plant had lost external power. As a result of that the the plant moved into when they were with the last unit which was working which was unit number six went into island mode which is to say it was providing at a low level of power output was providing power to the plant but this is not a sustainable situation you cannot do this you cannot stay without any external source of power only with the one of the reactors providing this at a lower level without damaging a number of parts notably the turbine blades and other parts I don't want to get into too much of a technical detail but simply to emphasize the fact that that was not a sustainable way forward I can tell you that thanks to the to the work of the operators there the the line the purple line here could could be could be repaired and there is another line on reserve or reserve that is now operational and in this or thanks to this the the unit number six began the process to what we call what we call a cold shutdown now more safely I suppose I don't know if this point if we have reached this point I don't know Lili I see you there has isn't already in cold shutdown I suppose okay so at the moment is thank you very much I suppose the plant is in this situation and we have been able to stabilize it in this in this regard next one no this was the last okay can you yeah thank you very much so the last slide to give you an idea as you can see the six reactors and each reactor has three emergency diesel generators plus two more in in reserve they all work in combination in different configurations they can work and this is the last line that we would have in case again this situation of absolute lack absence of external power would occur as you can see in general the situation we have I have been describing as unsustainable as you can see one day we have an emergency the technical operators can more or less patch it up repair it and then we are good God willing not until the next heat takes it down but we don't know we cannot know so this I wanted to give you at the beginning to give you a more clear impression of where we are in terms of the operation of the plant and in terms of what we can expect in the next few hours our team is working there we are getting timely information from from them so I would stop here this is facts and then as per your you know particular individual questions I am at your disposal thank you very much Hi DG Francois Murphy from Royce just to stay on that subject then so you said reactor six now all the reactors now are in cold shutdown what does Ukraine plan to keep things that way or are they planning on firing up one or more of the reactors soon and is that something that you would recommend or would or do you have a difference of opinion on what should happen well that is really their decision to make what we advise them if they ask us of course is always on the safety aspect and how the the safe operation of the plant can can can be better ensured in the circumstances surely the safest thing to do is to just keep it in cold shutdown right so it's up to them it's up to them that is of course there are those of course those who think that this would be the safest the safest thing but as I said independently of the fact that you have them in shutdown or not they still require external power supply so if you were in a situation where the external power was interrupted then you will still be facing a nuclear accident even if the reactors are not providing energy or power to the Ukrainian grid so I understand that it's up to them but what what is the plan though I mean you must be in conversation with them about what's what what's happening next so what is what is the plan and to simply kind of keep things keep things shut down until the security situation improves or is there a need to fire things up as quickly as possible and there is an external power line even if it's a backup one available now so that could be envisaged right according to the information we have they are trying to consolidate the external power supply issue including by if possible the restoration of some what some of the main the old the green but as you know this green in some cases go into russian controlled territory so this might be a bit tricky but the effort that as we see it is to try to keep the the plant operational I can say that in my even my conversation with president Zelensky this was one of his points they they they see this plant as very important as part of their national electrical grid and they want to keep it in that way so am I understanding you correctly and the idea is to consolidate the power lines before firing up one of the reactors it is a logical conclusion I have one Ukraine question and one Iran question I'll just stick with Ukraine right now DG grocery overnight there were attacks on transmission infrastructure generating infrastructure leaving much or parts of northern Ukraine in a blackout obviously Ukraine has nine other reactors outside of Zaporizhia how concerned are you right now about the redundancy of outside electricity electricity sources to other nuclear power plants and how are you monitoring that situation thank you for the question is a very relevant thing we are of course since this thing became such a potentially serious and grave situation we are monitoring for each one of the other nuclear power plants what is the situation for the moment we do not see or have not been informed about a critical situation in in in those but we are following following that very closely and when you look at the geography there are some plants that are not especially south Ukraine it's not so far from from military operations so we are following that very closely yes do you want do you want me to go into your honor do you want to okay sure DG grocery in the event that the JCPOA return is agreed and the additional protocol is reapplied what would be preventing your investigation from being concluded within the broader conclusion well let's say as part of the broad sorry go ahead broader you're talking about broad conclusion well you currently the safeguards investigation is treated as a separate agenda on each board of governors meeting what is to prevent this investigation from transitioning into an into the broader conclusion that's handled regularly by your safeguards department well you know here there are many parts to that question because the current investigation or or let's call it the the clarification process that we are trying to to conduct with Iran has not been through so so far we are still expecting this to happen then you have the the entire JCPOA associated verification and monitoring activities which have a number of parts which if implemented could facilitate us getting to to broader conclusion which as you know have respond to a number of criteria which are independent of JCPOA or or any other agreement reached or entered into between Iran and and and other countries is not five or six countries that will decide whether Iran has a broad conclusion it's the IAEA through its normal process but as you rightly say everything is interconnected and if anything what we can see one point that I can see is that we are we keep adding segments or or I don't want to call them obstacles but but challenges to that in that in that road I have been referring to how we get back the knowledge of what is happening now without our cameras been rolling and the and the other monitoring systems online enrichment monitoring and flow flow systems that we used to have and that we lost so frankly the information gap is is bigger and bigger and bigger again we don't want to sound dramatic but the reality is that it's going to be extremely difficult and we will have to work very very hard and Iran will have to be very transparent in giving us information accesses on a number of things so we can put back together a picture which will be approximate and never exact because we don't have the images to to the reality so I think there's a lot of homework to do before we get to broad conclusion which is of course what we always aspire for countries that have an additional protocol hi this is Stephanie Liechtenstein freelance journalist digi um I have a question on Ukraine and your suggestion for this safety and security zone yes um and you've also said in your introductory remark today that you are already consulting with Ukraine and Russia on this I'm wondering what kind of support you are expecting from the board of governors on this suggestion um and also maybe from the from the broader UN since I I suppose it's not the IAEA that is going to establish such a security zone is it someone else do you need support from the Security Council what's the plan so to say well I think we must keep things simple and this is why we came up with a proposal which we believe is realistic what we need is the agreement of course of Ukraine and Russia because they are in a military conflict which is um at the center of the safety and security concerns that we have for the plant and I am working within my mandate I cannot get and this is something I have been very clear there's no hiding here of the fact that I cannot get into areas that have to do with larger demilitarization or movements of troops none of that is part of my mandate I am not and I'm not evading the issue on the contrary I think you know whoever knows me knows that I don't elude responsibility on the contrary I'm getting into that but I'm getting in a way that we believe is practical other institutional involvement does not depend on us I guess that given the political configurations it might be perhaps difficult to have larger agreements what we need here really is Ukraine and and and Russia to agree on a very simple principle of non not attacking or not shelling at the plant and we can do that in a very simple way we have our monitors there our inspectors there that can inform whether this is being observed or or not and for that frankly we don't need the support which would always be welcome from either the border governors or or or whoever it may be it's something that a country can by the virtue of its relationship with the agency and the statute of the agency can request our support in terms of protecting the safety and security of one of their nuclear installations so we try to keep it simple we try to keep it practical because we need it as soon as possible naturally we have to consult and there are political aspects here you may have seen and heard that many world leaders are talking about this with both presidents and I'm following that of course as you can imagine but that is part of the political or diplomatic consultation that we that we are having but we want something which is linear which is direct which is straightforward Ukraine Russian Federation and the agency helping Albert OTDHM and the agency director general just so I I understand what you just said so basically your proposal for this zone does not include demilitarization but the kind of a silence of arms is that correct it includes that it may include other things there are some issues relating to the radius relating to the to the on-site equipment in presence at the moment but basically yes basically it's a commitment that no military action will include or will imply aiming of course at the plant or a radius that could be affecting its normal operation this is what we what we expect Bethany Bell BBC you say you have begun consultations with Ukraine and Russia have you seen any signs that either side is willing to commit to this agreement I have seen signs that they are interested in this agreement what kind yeah can you give us a couple more details on that well we are looking into the specific technical characteristics that we would like to see as I was implying in my in my previous answer there are issues related to the radius there are issues related to how our our experts would be working in this regard so there are a few things that should be agreed upon and what I see and of course diplomatic caution and and professionalism requires prudence but what I see is two sides that are engaging with us that are asking questions lots of questions hello Jordi from FN you were we were talking at the beginning about this secure shutdown and you were saying you were talking to the Ukrainian operator how autonomous can they make any decision right now I mean isn't it Russia at the end of the day who will decide what is done there on it on a pure technical level who is doing something who can decide it's an excellent question I have to do with a with an incredibly paradoxical nature of the situation because the regulator still is the Ukrainian regulator the plant is operated by an ergo atom and when it comes to so far when it comes to the operation of the plant it the decisions have been taken have been taken in Kiev by the Ukrainians so this is what the this is the situation that we have for now we haven't seen to be very more explicit we haven't situation where an external authority has ordered that one of the units should be working or should be stopping when when when the owner of the plant says the contrary but that could happen and mind you I have addressed this in my report and my recommendations because of the staffing and the hierarchical lines that should be should be clear it's a it's a very unique situation BBC Persian cancer energy hello I just wondered whether we can turn to Iran for a moment the Iranian statements are quite bellicose in a sense that they're saying that you're biased against them and they're not going to cooperate and this whole safeguard thing has to be implemented in an unbiased way I'm just wondering given the fact that Iran hasn't cooperated with you according to you in the last three months what you are expecting given these statements and given what has happened in the last three months what do you expect to see coming down the line and and this very specific charge that you are biased against Iran can you address that too well I would say I regret this this is not new of course it's not new to see that that when the agency is demanding certain things and Iran doesn't want to or does not engage in the way one would expect that they accuse us of being politicizing this issue is very straightforward we found traces of uranium in places that were never declared that were never supposed to have any nuclear activity and we are asking questions explain to me why this is a political use of my authorities this is what the IAA is supposed to do I hope I really hope that Iran will start cooperating with us as soon as possible we are ready we want this to happen we do we do we are not in the business of aggravating or creating situations we just want this issue to be to be clarified so I really hope that they will start looking into this issue in a different way I think that is needed and can I come back on that how sure are you that you are not going to come under political pressure from various parties I live under political I live under political pressure be it Iran Ukraine whatever your political pressure is always there the thing is what I do with that pressure and that is the most important thing I you know for me I'm not even offended by that I think they are pushing their national interest in the way they see it I think they should cooperate with the agenda with with the agency I'm sorry with the agency and that is the case in for other international crises that we are dealing with they should be respectful of the agency this is an agency that is the creation of member states and I have an international mandate I'm not here doing what I what I want but what I must so I hope that that you know political pressure whatever they they call it would would recede but we are running out of line so please if you have something urgent hello did you say yes hello I'm Samadhi from Iran international TV hello I have a question yes yesterday an Israeli official told the Israeli U.S. and EU intelligence agencies think an Iranian break out toward the nuclear weapon is unlikely at the moment I would like ask you what is the IAEA's assessment about Iran break out time and second question is have you contacted with Iranian official about the IAEA's safeguards concerns during the past weeks on breakout times I have said many times we do not get into that kind of speculation there are many people including those you you cited many NGOs and think tanks all over the world that like to do that to do all these calculations we are inspectors we are monitors and what we do is we assess the amounts and we give the information we are not getting into speculations about the motivations or how a country would do this or that this is something that we are not are not doing in terms of engagement with Iran it's not at the point I would really like it to see of course there is a permanent mission here and we keep reaching out to them I think normally we will be we should be having a different higher quality level of course the permanent mission is the natural channel is the representative here but on this we were used to having a very intense dialogue including with with Tehran I hope that dialogue will resume in fact without it being resumed in that way it's going to be very difficult and we have to see I2I and work together so I hope they they do that very soon yes hello good afternoon my name is Mehru and I'm from Radio Free Europe I have a question if the JCPOA is not revived and everything falls apart are you not worried that Iran moves towards leaving the MPT and will you be trying to find a political middle ground before that happens well I hope and I don't have any indication that Iran would leave the the the MPT we've seen you know in in recent history that countries doing that do it to proliferate and Iran has been very clear on their desire to keep their commitments under the under the MPT so I hope this will continue to be the case as far as the second part of your question is concerned I think people may have seen may have noted that over the past year year and a half the agency and myself we have done nothing but that we have been always kept doors open we have even created doors where none existed to keep the the processes in a collaborative way to give time time for diplomacy to imagine ways in which Iran could in an easier way for them comply with their obligations so we will always be ready for more and for good diplomacy if you excuse me I have to go back to the office for a few minutes before the the board restarts thank you thank you very much bye bye