 It gives me great, great pleasure to invite His Excellency, Mr. Rafale Grossi, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to address the conference. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, it's a great honor to be here today, and of course it gives me a special and very meaningful feeling to be doing this under your leadership, Mr. President, a friend of more than 35 years in the Argentine diplomatic service, and I'm very lucky to be here today. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it from the President, you heard it from the Secretary-General. We are facing big challenges, and my job here today as the head of the International Organization where the NPT comes to life through its safeguards system, through its technical cooperation program would be to try to address the specific ways in which many of the things and the challenges that the Secretary-General enunciated just now are being addressed. It is true we are at the moment where a number of important challenges and crises are converging in a quite astonishing way. We talk about a food crisis, we talk about an energy crisis, we talk about a climate crisis, and in every one of this, in every one of this nuclear sciences, technologies and applications have something to do, to contribute in our common efforts to face them and to bring well-being for all. When we talk about a climate crisis, of course countries are looking into ways to address this red code for the planet, as rightly said by the International Panel on Climate Change. So it comes as no surprise that many countries continue in their peaceful use of nuclear energy to power their economies and to bring development when it's needed. This is happening in Asia where countries are leading in the capacity in terms of nuclear energy. This is happening also in Europe where many countries continue and increase the percentage of nuclear energy, and even when countries have decided on a phase out, are thinking it over and slowing it down, because what we need is every possible tool to face the incredible challenge of climate change and to decarbonize our economies. Of course, this is connected in a very clear way to the work that you are undertaking today, which is to review and to strengthen the instrument that provides the basis whereby this is happening every day. Of course, when it comes to energy and nuclear energy in particular, everything finishes and starts with nuclear safety and nuclear security. And here, the nuclear safety regime led by member states and in close cooperation with the IEA has been tested by fire and flood, has been tested by fire in the flames that engulfed the reactor number four in Chernobyl, and it was challenged by flood with a gigantic wave that crippled the safety systems of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Since then, nuclear safety has been reinforced and nuclear is as safe as ever in a joint work by member states and nuclear technologists all over the world. But the technological challenges or the human and other problems that we have are being multiplied by the spectrum of war that was mentioned as well. And this has brought a new and unexpected dimension to nuclear safety in Ukraine, of course. At the beginning of the conflict, at the beginning of the war, I initiated seven pillars of nuclear safety that should never be violated when it comes to nuclear facilities. And these include, of course, the respect of the physical integrity of a nuclear power plant. These, of course, includes the necessity to preserve the safety and security system of a nuclear power plant. These includes, of course, the protection of the staff and their ability to carry out their job without undue pressure. This includes the permanent flow of external power to cool the systems. This includes the nuclear supply of components that have to come to these facilities and go out from these facilities. This, of course, includes radiation monitoring that must be present at all times. And finally, this must include communication with the regulators and others. All these seven principles, ladies and gentlemen, all these seven principles have been trampled upon or violated since this tragic episode started. This allowed us to go to Chernobyl as the IAEA and work together with Ukraine and restore the systems there. But still, there is an open challenge in Saporizhia. For a long time, I've been trying to go there, myself, leading a mission to carry out the indispensable safeguards inspections, because there is a lot of material there, to carry out the safety and security evaluations that need to be taking place there to look after the situation of the staff of this nuclear power plant. At the beginning of this, the Board of Governors of the IAEA addressed in a resolution referring to the Russian aggression and the consequences of this in the work of the IAEA through this resolution it addressed this issue and you may be familiar with that. Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to go. We hope to be able to come to Saporizhia. Because if something happens there, we will only have ourselves to blame for it, not a catastrophe, not earthquake or a tsunami. It will be our own inaction to blame for it. Nuclear nonproliferation has been rightly mentioned by the President and by the Secretary-General. We do know that we have important challenges ahead of us. The safety and security and the safeguards systems that we have are essential and as nuclear continues and as more nuclear material is added, a strong, robust, agile, present system of safeguards must be present everywhere. Let's not forget that in the 1990s, this system was circumvented, was challenged under the guise of peaceful activities. And this is when the international community came together and strengthened the safeguards regime that had been violated through the addition of the additional protocol which reinforced the system so that no one can do that. We will be needing this kind of support to be carrying out our mission in the way it should be. There are concrete issues that need to be addressed. We are working on them. We know that for us to be able to give the necessary and credible assurances that every activity in the Islamic Republic of Iran is in peaceful uses, we need to work collaborative with them. It can be done. We have been doing it in the past. But we need, and I say this very clearly, we need to have the access that is coming from the ground up, to be able to commensurate with the breadth and depth of that nuclear program. It can be done. Let's do it. There are, of course, other issues that are important for us. The situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is also of concern. And we hope that the inspectors of the IAEA will be able to return to this country expelled in 2009. Without that, there will be no trust and there will be no confidence. Let's do it. We also know, because everything evolves as the President was saying, it's a different world. And we also know that countries are working on nuclear naval propulsion. This, which is foreseen in the existing regulatory framework, still raises questions and requires adequate technical answers so that anything that is being done will be in full compliance with all existing safeguards, commitments, but all involved. The IAEA assists with the matter and we will be working on that. Finally, it is obvious that there is no, and we are not going to have a more secure world if more nuclear weapons are added to the existing nuclear arsenals or if new countries are exceeding to nuclear weapons. And we have to do everything in our power to prevent it. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, this is not a treaty for 20. This is a treaty for 194 or as many universal. But this goes to the heart of the issues of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Nuclear technologies, as the Secretary General was reminding us, help us cure cancer. Hence the launch of our Race of Hope project, which I had the honor to launch in Addis Ababa with our African friends. Because in Africa, 70% of the population do not have access to radiotherapy. When people die of cancers, no one does in industrialized nations. This is an obscenity and must stop. And the IAEA can work with member states to do it. The same applies to food security, where we can work on drought-resistant crops and protect them for the economy and the well-being of these countries. For the protection against ocean acidification of plastic pollution. Every single aspect of this is comprised within the technical cooperation program of the IAEA. And this brings back to the main issue. Why are we here? We are here to review the treaty that underpins makes sense of all of these activities that have to do with disarmament, with non-proliferation, and of course with peaceful uses. So from the perspective of the IAEA, where the NPT comes to life, let's recommit to these principles enshrined in this treaty. Let's protect the NPT. Let's embrace the NPT. The IAEA will be with you every step of the way. Thank you very much. I thank the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency for his important address and to express to him the appreciation of the state bodies for the work being carried out by the agency regarding the implementation of the relevant provisions of the treaty and in preparation for this conference. So I want to thank my dear friend Rafael Mariano Grossi for the kind words addressed to me.