On January 7, Minister Yoichi Miyazawa of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) met with Director General Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who was visiting Japan.
The two agreed that Japan would accept a second visit by the IAEA’s Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) to the Kashiwazaki Kariwa-6 and -7 Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), as well as a third decommissioning review mission to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) in mid-February.
In 2013, the IAEA sent two separate decommissioning review missions to the Fukushima Daiichi NPS. At an IAEA General Conference last autumn, Japan expressed its intention to continue to receive such missions. The previous OSART mission to the Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPS was in 2004. Japan will now coordinate with the IAEA on specific schedules and items toward the next actual visits.
On the same day, Amano paid a courtesy visit to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Speaking about decommissioning and measures for the treatment of contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi NPS, as well as the establishment of an international nuclear damage compensation system, the prime minister said that Japan respected the IAEA’s roles and wanted to continue to cooperate closely with it. Amano responded that the IAEA would work together with Japan.
On January 8, the IAEA director-general met with Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) at the ministry’s offices in Tokyo. Kishida praised the leadership of Amano in his efforts to establish an international nuclear damage compensation system through the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) for Nuclear Damage. He said that Japan wanted to be energetic in aiding those efforts, confirming the country’s commitment to cooperating with the IAEA in the future.
