 Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this press conference. And DG Gross, we'll go straight to questions, if you have any. Thank you very much. Yes. Please identify yourself. Sure. Hello, DG. Hello. Yeah. A question from China Media Group. Yes. And the question is about Fukushima. Yes. So, as you know that the Fukushima wastewater was released to the ocean last month. Yes. And how could you guarantee the data from Japan to be accurate, transparent, and reliable for the coming years? And how could you provide a platform, independent platform, for all member states to participate and monitor the process? Thank you. Thank you very much. A very important issue. In fact, the issue is not how we are doing it already. We are doing it already. As you know, the IAEA has established and is already having an independent monitoring and sampling system, which, by the way, has confirmed. And during the past few days, apart from the sampling at the discharge area, we are sampling now wider C areas, has confirmed that the levels of treatment are far below the lowest agreed operational levels. So in fact, what you are asking is about how is happening now. So we know, and what you're saying is that some people do not trust the figures provided by TEPCO. We corroborate what they have. But at the same time, we have our own independent sampling and monitoring capacity. As you know, when I went to Japan last June and to the plant, I set up an office, a specific office of the agency manned by us and with our technical experts. So the idea is that this operation will continue, as I said there, until the last drop. We are going to be doing our own independent analysis and informing in the ways, you know, there's an open web page that can be consulted and it is showing in real time what is happening there. So we attach great importance to this issue and we will continue with our independent work. Thank you very much. So you will be there for several years, like? Yes, until the last drop. Until the last drop? Yes. For the entire process? 20 years, 30 years, as long as it can take. And other member states could join in your mission? Let me, this is a very important question. The IAEA is the international presence. What you are asking me, some people say more countries, other countries should come. Well, this is like asking us to do the inspections in Iran with a group of people from different countries. This is an international organization. It has a statute, 177 members, and an international core of civil servants and technologists. So we do this. It's our obligation and our mission. Of course, Japan, others may decide to do other things, but we are the ones providing the independent assessment that is needed, just like we do it in every other place where we inspect, be it a nuclear facility or an enrichment facility or whatever this is. So we hope to have the support of the international community when we do this. Thank you very much. Hello, Digi. François Leffy from Royce, Israel. I have a couple of questions on Iran. First of all, on your trip to Sweden recently, you expressed a bit of frustration at the lack of attention that there's been on Iran's nuclear program lately. So I was wondering how you feel about these U.S.-Iranian de-escalation talks that are happening at the moment. Simply because we're in a situation now where you're saying that there's no progress at all on the issues that matter most to you. And at the same time, we have these de-escalation talks, or at least giving the impression that there is some progress on various issues, some of them nuclear, which is what attention there is on Iran today is more focused on that than on what you've been saying in your recent reports. And secondly, in one of your two reports, you say that for agency cameras to be effective, including those installed at Esfahan, so the ones that were reinstalled recently, the agency needs access to the data they record. And so I'm wondering why wasn't that included in the joint statement with Iran in March and whether you have any regrets about how that was handled, how you handled those negotiations at the time? Thank you very much, François. On the first part of your question, well, we are aware that there is a bilateral process of sorts. We have been informed by the United States about this. But of course, when it comes to the nuclear part of that, we are not clear what is being discussed or agreed. We know that this is a very singular dialogue and we do not have anything against that on the contrary. Anything that may help, help, sorry, to bring clarity and cooperation for us is good. But when it comes to my work, it is what we have. And what we have is what you see in the reports which is composed of different issue areas, those related to JCPOA in whichever state we may wish to describe it to be and those that have to do with the so-called outstanding issues on which unfortunately there is not much progress at all. And lastly, the additional monitoring and verification measures and this brings me to the second part of your question. The issue of the process that we established through this joint statement is meant to be a gradual process of confidence building, which included this ability on our side to have more presence, electronic and otherwise. And the issue of the access to the data and information is supposed to be tackled. It is not precluded from being addressed when you look at the draft, sorry, at the statement. What you don't have is a specific. You may remember that this document talks about certain modalities and this is included in the modalities, of course it's key and you are addressing an important point. We need to reconstruct, more than reconstruct the knowledge to have a new baseline which in the absence of this information will be impossible. So we hope to come at some point to an agreement, but at this point in time we are nowhere near this. Hi Digi, I have one follow up on Iran and then a question about the budget. Despite the disappointment expressed in the report on Iran about the lack of access and whatnot, it's our understanding that there will be no resolution of censure on Iran at this board meeting despite requests for member states to take a more active hand. I'm just wondering to what extent how you're feeling in terms of the support that you're receiving from member states is the support that you're receiving adequate. And in terms of the budget, you warned in your statement that the agency is facing a liquidity crisis. I note that at the end of 2022, there were arrears of 93 million euros among member states, but you cite this time 202 million euros. So I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of background and color on what's happening there. Why is that number increasing? Is it because of larger macroeconomic factors in the global economy? What's happening there? Thank you very much. On Iran, I would say the issue of resolution of course in the realm of member states. So I try to abstain from saying it's good or bad to have a resolution. You know how the debates go in this regard. I think, and Francois was also mentioning that in a certain sense when he was recalling some of my statements in Sweden, there is a certain routinization of what is going on there. And I'm concerned about this because the issues are as valid today as they were before. So we believe that of course there are many pressing issues in the international agenda. I'm aware of that, but I think it is important to continue to support the agency in its work. The agency's influence and ability to do its job is solely based on the support it gets to discharge its mandate. We will continue to report and we will continue to say what is happening. But there is some, I would say, decrease in the interest on something which I would say continue to have a degree of priority. So, but anyway, we have to limit ourselves to report what is happening and of course the evaluation is in the hands of member states. On the budget, yeah, I think it is regrettable. What is, I'm a bit puzzled that we are not getting the assess contributions we need. As you can imagine, in due diligence, we have checked with other international organizations at the US Secretariat and they don't seem to be in the position we are. So I don't get into speculations about why this may be the case, but the reality is that we are facing a very serious situation. We may be grinding to a halt in a month if we don't get the money that is owed to the agency. So I was telling the distinguished governors, each one of your statements is saying how much you support the agency? Well, it's time to walk the walk, maybe for some countries, important countries. So hopefully there will be a solution. The last time the IAEA found itself in a similar situation was in 1995. 1995, and I think your question is very pertinent. I was mentioning this issue to some of the governors. Like many others, I suppose, I read the IMF, the World Bank reports and one does not see in 2023 a particular critical situation. We were getting all the assess contribution at the highest point or lowest point of the COVID lockdowns and crisis where... So it is a peculiar thing that is happening. I hope there is not anything more than bureaucratic delay, but we will see to be continued. Bethany Bell, BBC News. Hello. Hi, Didi. Last week on Friday you reported that there had been numerous explosions heard from around Zapparizia. I wonder if you give us an update on the situation then now, please, has there been any change since last week? Yes, yes, this is, you know, I'm very concerned about that. The artillery activity is almost constant at the moment and of course the ISAMS team is reporting about this. So like I always say, we go day by day on Zapparizia, hoping that there won't be a hit at the plant or that a supply, power supply line will not fall, but this is the situation. The, as we have been pointing out in our reports, we are following very closely the situation. There is, there are a number of technical issues that are starting to arise like the long-term shutdown of the plant, many issues that have safety, nuclear safety implications as well, that we will have to be discussing, of course, with the Ukrainian regulator, but in particular with the management of the plant. So I hope to continue my discussions with both sides maybe soon at high level. Albert Auti, EPA Chairman Press Agency. You also expressed concerning Zapparizia, you also expressed concern in your opening statement on the continued military presence. At Zapparizia, in your report to the board, you talk of a significant stable but significant military presence. Can you give us an idea how big this Russian military presence is in terms of soldiers and also your team has been able to access a few of the reactive roofs. There have been reports earlier this year of combat positions being, having been established by the Russians there. Have they seen such combat positions? No, no, okay. As you know, we know about this. We got some images about them but and we started asking for the access, as you know, which has been partially granted. So the places that we visited, there was none. We are asking to complete the whole set as soon as possible. Regarding the military presence, I would say it's noticeable but it's not growing. So there are a few vehicles. Importantly, in the context of the five basic principles that I set out at the United Nations Security Council, there is no heavy military equipment and this is what we are looking at. We want to avoid that the plant becomes militarized or becomes a military base of sorts. Yeah. Hello. Kastronoji from the BBC Persian television. Three points. First, you've been saying that you cannot say that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. You've been saying this for some time. Do you think there is anything you can do about this in a sense that this has been going on for some time and whether there is anything that you and the agency can do to make Iran answerable? Two, the issue of your agreement in March for putting in more cameras. Nothing much has happened on that front. You have two cameras installed but you don't have access to their data anyway and there are no more forthcoming. I just wondered whether you were over-optimistic when you came back from your trip to Iran. And lastly, do you think given what is happening to Iran's nuclear program and the expansion that is undergoing in terms of material and so on and so forth, whether JCPOA in your view is still relevant, the limitations or would you say that given the situation now? Really, if you want to go back to JCPOA, you have to renegotiate the whole thing. Very good. Okay, on the affirmation that we cannot say, this is based that we cannot say that the nuclear program is entirely in peaceful uses. This is because for as long as we do not have clarifications on traces of uranium that must be somewhere and if it's not anywhere, we would like to know what is the reason or equipment. We cannot say that the Iranian declaration is complete, comprehensive and correct. We are not accusing them of anything. We are asking the questions. There are the traces. Therefore, there was nuclear material. Where is the nuclear material? There were containers, there was equipment inside. Where is this equipment? So until, as I have said, until and unless they say, this is the story, this is the reason and then we can have an interactive dialogue with them and put our questions. Then I cannot say everything is accounted for. So it's a straightforward. There's no politics in this. It's a straightforward conclusion given the outstanding issues. On the March statement, yes, and some of you have referred to this. There are different issues. One is to try to have as many additional verification and monetary equipment as we can in agreement with Iran because this is, of course, voluntary. This is in addition, all right? So I might correct you. It's a bit more than two cameras that we were able to install. Still, far from the number I believe would be necessary to have, but we started. This was back in May, all right? But of course, one thing goes or comes with the other. It's good to have the cameras. One cannot say that cameras without the data are useless. This we cannot say. The cameras are good and the information is being recorded and this is important. As you know, not having access to the information at this point was part of the deal because this is voluntary and Iranian. The part of the deal was the case and you were not. That we should wait until there is progress on JCPOA or they can restart because what is the goal of these cameras and information systems that we are putting there? The goal is to have an idea, a baseline of how many centrifuges they have, how many rotor bellows and parts of centrifuges they have or they are building, how much material there is. So that when there is a return to the JCPOA or to any other agreement that may come, people know what we're talking about. It doesn't make any sense and I have explained that many times. I mean, the lines that were agreed in 2015 and existed until March 2018 when the United States withdrew from the agreement are irrelevant. And it's public in the public domain. Before we were talking about IR1 centrifuges, now we have IR2, 4, 6, I mean there, you have the whole catalog, more or less, and the material and now you have 60% material and you have, I mean, it's a completely different scenario. So this is why you need all this information. Was I being over-optimistic? No, I was doing my job. My job consists in always never giving up, trying to find avenues and ways in which Iran cooperates with us. This is my obligation, a technical work and diplomatic means. This is my mission, all right? So of course, I wish the pace of the cooperation was faster, was better. I hope we can still get to that. At the last point you mentioned, whether it's still relevant, maybe it's not for me to say. What I can tell you is that perhaps you don't need to, as you say, renegotiate the whole thing. What you need to do is to do all these technical parameters adjustment. Without adjusting your technical parameters, you are having an agreement that does not fit, does not correspond with 2023, 2024 Iran. It corresponded to Iran 2015, not anymore. So you can protocolize it the way you want. Maybe the negotiators have protocols, attachments, technical adjustments is for them to say. But what is obvious is obvious. Hi, DG. Hi. China Xinquan users. Hello. My question is about the United States like a recent decision to send depleted uranium emission to Ukraine. And previously also from Britain to Ukraine. I'm wondering what is IAEA's position on this question, on this kind of weapon. Any concerns over the possible radiological impacts on civilians and environment? Well, this is not a new issue. As you know, the issue of ammunition with depleted uranium was dealt with and had considerable international attention during the Gulf War and then the Balkan War. As you know, this is ammunition which is reinforced with depleted uranium that has a special capacity to penetrate armored surfaces or plating. So in terms of the technical approach from the agency, basically you can say theoretically that this should be declared, but normally it is not because of two things. First of all, it's in the military domain. So countries do not necessarily inform about that. But there is from a nuclear safety point of view there is no radiological significant or even not even significant consequences. It may be in some very specific cases, for example, people very near a place that should have been hit with this kind of ammunition if they inhale the aerosols that could be come as a result of that, there could be a contamination but it's more of a health issue of a normal nature than a radiological potential crisis. Hello. That's Goinaki from Nippon Television. I just wanna go back quickly to the Fukushima. Yeah. The Korean, you have a special arrangement with the Korean on the monitoring Can you just go over this a little bit because they have dispatched a team to Korea and I've heard from other sources that they have actually visited the IAEA facilities in the site, what did they do and were they convinced that IAEA is doing the right thing? I hope so. No, the thing is this, Korea, together with China and other countries, expressed some concerns and in the case of Korea, when I visited Korea, the foreign minister said that they wanted to understand better what is the IAEA doing. So in a sort of a trilateral negotiation between foreign minister Park Jin, foreign minister Hayashi and myself, we came up, I offered a possibility to have an information mechanism. This doesn't mean that Korea is inspecting us or that Korea is making the measurements. This is what I was telling our distinguished colleague just now, we do the measurements but they feel that it's important for their public opinion to have a clear understanding of how the IAEA is working, what is this independent sampling mechanism, how it functions. So actually we explain what we do, how we do it and of course we share the information. I think it is a good example in case there are doubts about the way this is being performed of what can be done. So on the convincing or not, I suppose they are because as you have seen our readings are very consistent since we started, we were sampling before the first batch started to be discharged on August 24th, if I'm correct. Then when they began and now we are doing open sea monitoring and sampling. So I think it's going well, we hope it continues. As I always say, there is no clean bill of healthcare. We have to continue very meticulously for each batch because there may be oscillations, there may be issues. This is the whole sense of the operation there. Those questions from Jordi, yes. Jordi. Hi, DJ Jordi from EFE. Let me go back to the budget thing. Yeah. We asked, we saw from the data that at the end of 22 the outstanding was 97 million more or less and now you're speaking about 2020. Why is that a big increase in 2023? And we have seen that a big part of the 97 is from Latin American countries, specifically from South American countries. Yeah. Two big South American countries. Is there a specific reason you know about? No, the biggest debtor is not in South America. So, but yes, in South America there are few countries that are in arrears. Actually, 44% of my membership sadly is in arrears. But of course there are, there's a very relatively small group of countries that are the largest contributors. And this is where the problem lies actually. South America being in touch with the foreign ministers of these countries and I'm raising the issue. But if you have to or if you have to put the magnifying glass on a country or a region is not, you should put it somewhere else. Okay, but why did it increase so much in 2023? Is there a specific reason? Because of this, 22 was 22, 23 is 23. Then if you add the assessed contribution of some very important for this year, then the figures skyrocket. Thank you very much. Okay. I thank you very much. Thank you.