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Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Part of UK in Austria

19th October 2016 Vienna, Austria

What really happens at the IAEA General Conference: Kraftwerk explain

So what really happens at a General Conference of the IAEA – the International Atomic Energy Agency?

Delegates from 168 countries converge on the HQ of the IAEA in Vienna. They hold many meetings; and, after a week, most of them return to their countries.

But why?

It’s always difficult explaining what diplomats do.  It’s even harder when those diplomats congregate at technical-sounding international organisations such as the IAEA. This year, we have produced a short video on the IAEA’s annual General Conference to set out what it and the IAEA do: here it is.  I recommend it, including the Kraftwerk-style soundtrack composed and performed by one of our in-house media gurus.

At this year’s IAEA General Conference, the UK delegation was led by Robin Grimes, the Foreign Office Chief Scientific Adviser, and supported by the UK Mission in Vienna. Our key themes were to highlight the UK’s commitment to civil nuclear energy; its efforts to work with the IAEA to ensure that nuclear applications can flourish through robust safety, security and emergency preparedness; and our commitment to the international non-proliferation architecture – in other words, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

Discussion during the Conference focused on issues such as nuclear security (helping to prevent nuclear materials being stolen); safeguards (how to stop nuclear materials from civil nuclear power being diverted for use in weapons programmes); nuclear safety (preventing accidents in nuclear power stations); and technical co-operation (how the IAEA can use nuclear technology, such as the sterile insect technique or the measurement of soil moisture content, to boost the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals).

In the course of the week we had many discussions on all of these and many other subjects, and agreed resolutions – this year, all by consensus – to steer the important work of the IAEA.

It’s a big, meaty agenda. By the time the General Conference closed, at 22.45 on the Friday evening, good progress had been made and the IAEA was ready to embark on the year ahead.

I’m already looking forward to the General Conference this time next year in 2017.  Watch this space.

About Leigh Turner

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of…

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of the UN and other organisations; stories here will reflect that.

About me: I arrived in Vienna in August 2016 for my second posting in this wonderful city, having first served here in the mid-1980s. My previous job was as HM Consul-General and Director-General for Trade and Investment for Turkey, Central Asia and South Caucasus based in Istanbul.

Further back: I grew up in Nigeria, Exeter, Lesotho, Swaziland and Manchester before attending Cambridge University 1976-79. I worked in several government departments before joining the Foreign Office in 1983.

Keen to go to Africa and South America, I’ve had postings in Vienna (twice), Moscow, Bonn, Berlin, Kyiv and Istanbul, plus jobs in London ranging from the EU Budget to the British Overseas Territories.

2002-6 I was lucky enough to spend four years in Berlin running the house, looking after the children (born 1992 and 1994) and doing some writing and journalism.

To return to Vienna as ambassador is a privilege and a pleasure. I hope this blog reflects that.

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