IAEA General Director to arrive in Cuba

Havana, Cuba, May 15.- Yukiya Amano, general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will arrive today to Havana on an official visit, announced the Agency for Nuclear Energy and Advanced Technologies (AENTA).

Amano will hold meetings with national authorities and next Monday will attend the opening of the 20th Meeting of the Technical Coordination Body (OCTA) of the Regional Cooperation Agreement for the Promotion of Nuclear Science and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean (ARCAL).

The sessions will be from May 20-24 at the Meliá Marina Varadero Hotel, in the province of Matanzas, with the presence of executives from the Latin American and Caribbean region, MSc. Daniel Lopez, AENTA president, told ACN.

ARCAL is an intergovernmental agreement that is mainly based on horizontal, technical and economic cooperation in order to promote the use of nuclear capabilities and their applications for peaceful purposes.

It emerged in 1984 with the participation of Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Cuba joined ARCAL Program in 1988, signed the Agreement on September 25, 1998, and ratified it on September 4, 2002.

Since its entry to date, Cuba has participated in more than 130 projects and has maintained a permanent activism in ARCAL organs.

At the 20th OCTA Meeting, Cuba will assume the presidency of ARCAL for two years with the commitment to continue cooperating in the training of human resources, the promotion of nuclear applications and boosting a safety culture in the region, including the Caribbean.

This will be Amano´s third visit to Havana as he previously did it in 2014 and 2016. (ACN)