Kazakhstan hoping to join IAEA Board of Governors

Kazakhstan hopes to join the IAEA Board of Governors shortly; to access the Far East regional group Kazakhstan only lacks support of South Korea, RIA Novosti reports, citing Mr. Anuar Tanalinov, Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Multilateral Cooperation. “Kazakhstan hopes to join the IAEA Board of Governors in the foreseeable future (…) it would be fair given the role Astana has been playing in the global nuclear market and given the country’s contribution to the global nonproliferation cause”, he said, adding that Kazakhstan holds 19% of the global explored reserves of uranium, with the country’s uranium reserves estimated at 802 000 tons. Mr. Anuar Tanalinov elaborated that Kazakhstan needs to access one of the 6 IAEA regional groups to be eligible to join the IAEA Board of Governors. He said that Kazakhstan had decided to access the Far East group. “Virtually all the member states of the group do support Kazakhstan; there are only some issues with South Korea”, Tanalinov said. According to him, South Korea has no objections to or disputes with Kazakhstan; lack of support is only assigned to Seoul’s own interests. Concerned over the nuclear program of North Korea, South Korea has been trying to strengthen its own involvement in the IAEA. Mr. Tanalinov emphasized that Kazakhstan and South Korea share the same positions on North Korea’s programs and that Kazakhstan is confident North Korea should be part of the non-proliferation treaty. “We are having talks with South Korea and want to make it clear that we are going to collaborate with tem, rather than compete”, the diplomat said. He also reminded that Kazakhstan is in talks with the IAEA to host an international nuclear fuel bank in its territory and expressed hope the talks would be complete by early 2014.