APS : Friday, 16 February 2018
VIENNA- Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdelkader Messahel inked Friday, in Vienna, the Additional Protocol to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano.
By signing this Additional Protocol, drawn up in 1997, which constitutes the main international instrument to control the nuclear energy, Algeria confirms, as underlined by Messahel on the occasion of the signing ceremony, its commitment to the international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, marked by its adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1994, the signing in 1997 with IAEA of comprehensive safeguards agreement and other international instrument such as the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, Convention on Nuclear Safety and more recently, in September 2017, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in which Algeria played a leading role in its conclusion.
Messahel also emphasized the “particularly active” participation of Algeria in the different forums and international organizations in charge of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament through notably its chairmanship in 2000 and 2015 of the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, held every five years at the head of the executive Secretariat of the African Commission on Nuclear Energy, as a result of the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty (also known as the Treaty of Pelindaba), making from Africa a zone free from nuclear weapons.
Messahel seized this opportunity to reiterate Algeria’s position which calls for “the effective enshrinement of the developing countries’ inalienable right to use energy, science and nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, underlining the importance of IAEA’s role to achieve it, notably in the priority fields of health, particularly fight against cancer, and of agriculture to improve agricultural productivity.”
