Creating Nuclear Safety Efficiency Rating for Member States Useless: IAEA

MOSCOW, December 11 (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov – The creation of a ranking system, to measure the efficiency of nuclear safety infrastructure for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) member states is useless, the organizations's deputy head told Sputnik News Agency Thursday.

"It is not helpful or useful for nuclear safety and nuclear security to establish such a ranking," IAEA Deputy Director General Denis Flory told Sputnik.

Flory explained that under the IAEA mandate, the organization can only assist and give recommendations on nuclear security to its member states.

"Assisting the country is different from ranking a country," IAEA deputy head added.

At the same time, Deputy Chairman of Russia's Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor) Alexey Ferapontov told Sputnik that if such a ranking system were to exist, "all member countries that have decided to develop atomic energy, should all be ranked equally, ranked first."

On December 9-11, Rostekhnadzor and the IAEA hosted an international workshop devoted to exchanging experience gained from the IAEA's Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) missions.

The IRRS was created in 2006 in order to evaluate IAEA's member state regulatory infrastructures in relation to IAEA safety standards. More than 50 IRRS missions have been carried out worldwide. Two of them have been carried out in Russia, in 2009 and 2013.