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IAEA chief says U.S. Saudi nuclear safeguards will cover sensitive activities
Saudi Arabia will not sign the IAEA Additional Protocol, but the safeguards agreement is expected to give inspectors verification and monitoring authority over enrichment, conversion and reprocessing.
OilPrice reports that International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said in Vienna the planned U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation deal will not include the IAEA's toughest inspection regime, the Additional Protocol, which allows unannounced inspections of undeclared sites.
Grossi said Riyadh is instead preparing to grant the IAEA verification and monitoring authority over Saudi Arabia's most sensitive nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment, the conversion step that precedes enrichment, and reprocessing.
According to OilPrice, the IAEA chief said the new powers being built into a bilateral safeguards agreement will be very similar to those provided by the Additional Protocol, though he did not spell out specifics.
OilPrice adds that the safeguards agreement, once finished, still must be submitted to the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors for sign-off, and that the framework traces back to a 123 agreement signed by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman on July 22.