Safeguards in Pakistan: State-Agency Cooperation

Implementation of IAEA Safeguards in Pakistan dates back to March, 1962 when a trilateral safeguards agreement (INFCIRC/34) was signed for the supply of Pakistan Research Reactor-1 (PARR-1), under the ''Atoms for Peace program''. At that time there were few nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards around the globe. Since then Pakistan has concluded several safeguards agreements with the Agency. All the safeguards agreements concluded by Pakistan are governed under the Safeguards Document INFCIRC/66/Rev.2. Under this model, an item-specific or facility-specific safeguards is applied which employs diverse approaches and, from some aspects, is more stringent than Comprehensive Safeguards approach. However, Pakistan believes in strong State-Agency cooperation for successful implementation of safeguards. Throughout the history of safeguards in Pakistan since 1962, the atmosphere of coordination and cooperation with Agency in safeguards implementation has been exceptional. Pakistan has been extending its utmost cooperation with the Agency in resolving the emerging safeguards issues at its safeguarded facilities. KANUPP remained involved in the Agency project on ''Development of In situ Verification for CANDU Spent Fuel Bundles'' as well as in performance evaluation of bundle counters. KANUPP has been providing analytical services for heavy water samples and various manufacturing services on Agency's requests. Pakistan is participating in voluntary reporting scheme established by the Agency regarding any export of separated neptunium (Np) and americium (Am) to any of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) State since 2000. Various emerging issues of safeguards implementation have been resolved with the Agency by agreeing to a number of Safeguards Approaches with the Agency. Recently this number has been increased to 36. We intend to maintain this spirit of cooperation with the Agency in future regarding safeguards implementation in Pakistan. (author)