Support For The Iaea Safeguards Activities In The Rok Under Covid-19

Support for the IAEA Safeguards Activities in the ROK under COVID-19Donghyuk LIM*Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control, 1418 Yuseong-daero, Daejeon, Republic of Korea*Corresponding author: dhlim@kinac.re.krABSTRACTThe World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a Pandemic on March 11. Through this, economic damage has increased worldwide, and daily life itself has changed significantly, including policy changes in many countries and restrictions on movement. This naturally led to changes in IAEA safeguards activities and SSAC of IAEA member states. Under these circumstances, the ROK has made efforts from various perspectives to successfully carry out IAEA safeguards activities. In the early days of the Pandemic, there were various difficult situations such as travel restrictions and entry restrictions around the world under COVID-19, but the Korean government has cooperated closely with IAEA for the SG verification activities from the very early stage of the Pandemic to the present. As a result, total 104 SGs activities (95 inspections and 9 CA) could be successfully performed in the ROKIn particular, in order to achieve the IAEA safeguards objectives, the ROK adjusted the operating schedule of domestic nuclear facilities and closely and actively cooperated with the IAEA so that IAEA inspections could be conducted in a timely manner. In addition, ROK has provided an information package with IAEA inspectors to enable timely access to the ROK facilities. It includes the ROK government's changing policy on the entry process, infectious disease prevention and control measures, and facility access process, emergency contact list, etc. Based on these results, it was an important opportunity to reconsider how important close cooperation between the IAEA, state (SRA) and nuclear facilities is in implementing safeguards activities, even in difficult circumstances.