Published: Less than 40 min ago
Negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow on the establishment of a safe zone around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant continue – while the head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency IAEA warns of potential consequences of fighting nearby.
– We cannot continue to rely on luck to avoid a nuclear accident, says IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to CNN on Wednesday.
Grossi says that the negotiations are progressing but that since it is an active combat zone it is not so easy to reach agreements.
The IAEA chief says he has spoken with both Ukrainian and Russian representatives in recent days.
– It’s moving forward, I think, and I hope that traumatic events like those over the past weekend can paradoxically help us move forward, as people have to realize that we can’t continue to rely on luck to avoid a nuclear accident, he says .
Grossi says with regard to the weekend’s heavy explosions near the nuclear power plant that the IAEA’s role is not to find scapegoats but to make the fighting near the plant stop.
On Wednesday, the nuclear power plant again lost access to external electricity and instead had to rely on its diesel-powered emergency generators for reactor cooling and other essential functions, the IAEA said in a statement.