Belarus to fulfill IAEA's IRRS follow-up mission recommendations in full

MINSK, 13 December (BelTA) – Recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) follow-up mission will be fulfilled in full, BelTA learned from Head of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor) Olga Lugovskaya on 13 December.

The official said: “A follow-up mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Integrated Regulatory Review Service is ending today. I would like to thank the IAEA for sending a team of experts to us despite the epidemic situation. It was a lot of support for us considering Belarus' transition to a new stage – the ensuring of nuclear and radiation safety during commercial operation of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. All the recommendations of the follow-up mission will be fulfilled in full.”

In her words, Belarus hosted the follow-up mission in order to demonstrate what work had been done, what results had been achieved, how the IAEA recommendations given in 2016 had been introduced into the regulatory infrastructure. “Apart from that, it is also an opportunity for us to sketch out ways for further stepping up nuclear and radiation safety. In 2016 25 recommendations and 20 proposals on forming the regulatory infrastructure were determined. We've reported that we've fulfilled most of them. Our task now is to finish fulfilling previous recommendations and form new avenues of work that will allow us to fulfill all the recommendations during the operation of the Belarusian nuclear power plant,” the official noted.

Belarus hosted an IRRS follow-up mission on 5-13 December. The primary goal of the IRRS follow-up mission was to review the fulfillment of recommendations and proposals of the IRRS mission that visited Belarus in 2016. The IRRS follow-up mission was led by a representative of the Swiss Federal Inspectorate for Nuclear Safety (ENSI) Georg Schwarz. The mission consisted of people representing competent organizations of Greece, Pakistan, Russia, USA, Finland, Switzerland, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Representatives of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor), the state science and technology institution Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center, the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry, the Healthcare Ministry, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs worked with the mission.