RPT: PREVIEW - IAEA To Start 63rd Annual General Conference

VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2019) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN nuclear watchdog, will start its 63rd General Conference in Vienna, which will run for five days, on Monday.

The meetings are expected to address a wide range of issues, including the application of the agency's safeguards in the middle East and North Korea as tensions remain high around the collapsing Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and stalled denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

The UN nuclear watchdog is also set to address a range of internal issues, including the IAEA's annual report, financial statements for 2018 as well as to approve a programme and budget for 2020-2021. Besides, delegates will vote to elect 11 new members to the IAEA's 35-member board of Governors.

The conference comes after the UN nuclear watchdog's director general, Yukiya Amano, passed away in July. The agency is expected to appoint a new director general by October, and four countries � Argentina, Burkina Faso, Romania and Slovakia � have submitted their candidates.

Acting Director General Cornel Feruta, a renowned Romanian diplomat, and Argentine Envoy to the IAEA Rafael Grossi are widely seen as frontrunners. The latter told Sputnik during his visit to Moscow last week that he had received many signals of support, in particular from the Latin American countries, adding that he would use the IAEA General Conference and the UN General Assembly that is set to begin later this week for further networking in order to win support for his candidature.

The other two candidates are Burkina Faso's Lassina Zerbo, the executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, and Slovakia's Marta Ziakova, who was elected as the president of the 62nd IAEA General Conference in 2018.

The IAEA's General Conference is also expected to feature a two-day Scientific Forum on cancer control that is expected to address radiotherapy and nuclear medicine. The General Conference will also feature some 86 side events.