IAEA Board of Governors Meeting
Statement by HE Dr Brendon Hammer, Resident Representative of Australia to the IAEA
Agenda Item 7(d) (DPRK): Application of Safeguards in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
5 June 2018
Thank you, Chair.
Australia remains committed to what has become a universally shared goal of the international community: The complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
While Australia welcomes the prospect of talks with the DPRK aimed at achieving denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula it remains clear that in the meantime North Korea’s ongoing development of nuclear weapons still presents an unacceptable challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament framework as established under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Chair,
We hope that North Korea will honour its commitment to ‘complete denuclearisation’ made in the Panmunjom Declaration and that the upcoming 12 June US-North Korea summit can make progress so that the difficult, but essential process of agreeing on concrete actions and timeframes towards denuclearisation can proceed.
Chair,
Australia knows that the IAEA would have a crucial verification role to play should North Korea finally fulfil its commitment to denuclearise, so we commend the Agency for the important and thorough preparatory work it has undertaken to maintain readiness to return to the DPRK.
Chair,
Australia once again urges North Korea:
- to return to compliance with the NPT
- to return to IAEA Safeguards at an early date
- and to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner.
Thank you.