Representatives of the Reflection Group for Peacebuilding (PRG), including Portuguese Victor Ângelo as the first signatory, wrote a letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres asking him to act urgently to prevent a nuclear disaster in the center of the United Nations. from Zaporijia.
The PRG points out that concerns “have grown enormously and menacingly in recent weeks” following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which “endangers the cooling system capacity” of the plant; “due to reports of significant explosion hazard around some of the six reactors”; “and, in recent days, the mandatory evacuation order by Russia of all military and technical personnel” from the center.
The signatories ask that the recommendation of the InterAction Council, which on May 17, recommended strengthening the presence of UN/IAEA observers around the Zaporijia nuclear power plant to avoid interference in its management and operation, is strictly followed.
“We call on the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, in coordination with the Director-General of the IAEA, to swiftly raise this issue with the UN Security Council and to bring it to the attention of the five permanent members of the urging the Security Council to recognize the urgency of a reinforced preventive deployment of UN/IAEA observers and the implementation of a UN or OSCE observation and verification mission in the vicinity of the power station,” it read.
The Reflection Group for Peacebuilding recalls that Ukraine suffered significant damage from the radiation released after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and that less than a decade later it voluntarily gave up Soviet nuclear weapons, seeking guarantees of peace and sovereignty and territorial integrity in accordance with the 1994 Budapest Treaty. Memorandum The PRG recalls, however, that these guarantees were violated by the Russian invasion and the ongoing war in Ukraine and around Europe’s largest nuclear complex.
Source: DN
