Speaking in the General Assembly's debate on the annual report of the Vienna-based Agency, Raza Bashir Tarar, the acting Pakistan permanent representative to the United Nations, said the IAEAs role has become even more important in an increasingly complex and challenging international environment, amid the fast growing global energy demands, shortage of fossil fuel reserves and the diverse challenges of safety and security concerns.
"In discharging these functions, it would be important for the Agency to be seen as an impartial, efficient and professional body -- not just a 'nuclear watchdog'" -- in fulfilling its crucial role of promoting peaceful use of nuclear energy and advancing socio-economic development, Tarar told the 193-member Assembly.
"In evolving a strengthened nuclear safety regime, it would be essential to take into account the differentiated nature of countries' needs and circumstances," the Pakistani delegate added.
"The course correction proposals and modalities should be based on technical and objective assessments." The Assembly's recent high-level meeting on nuclear safety and security had served to focus international attention on the important issues of nuclear safety, and the adoption of a Nuclear Safety Plan of Action, was both "timely and useful," he said.
Pakistan fully supported the Agency's role in evaluating and institutionalizing the lessons learned from Japan's Fukushima accident. Pakistan, for its part, had begun a comprehensive review of the existing power plants, and would bring about modifications if necessary, Tarar said.
He said Pakistan had benefited from the expertise of the IAEA in the form of expert missions, the Operational Safety Review Team, and technical cooperation programmes.
Placing emphasis on such cooperation, he also stressed the need for enhanced and assured training facilities for the developing countries through greater involvement of developing countries in the programme's design and implementation.
Pakistan had long been a supporter of safe and sustainable nuclear energy, he pointed out, noting that the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was actively engaged in harnessing nuclear energy for such uses.
However, the main challenge was to harness nuclear power for electricity; Pakistan hoped to dramatically increase the percentage of its electricity that came from nuclear power by 2030.
Nuclear security had emerged as a critical area requiring attention, the Pakistani delegate went on to say. While Pakistan supported international efforts in that regard, it also shared the IAEA view that responsibility for nuclear security rests entirely with each State.
In recent years,he added, a number of related initiatives and activities had sprung up globally, often performing overlapping work. Pakistan shared the concern of the IAEA about the duplication of such efforts.
It would be counterproductive financially and politically to overlap efforts, in particular in the development of parallel guidelines, recommendations, standards and guidance documents in the field of nuclear security.
Pakistan's Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) was a strong, credible and independent overseer, he stressed. It had followed international standards and maintained a close relationship with the IAEA, an approach which had won the PNRA wide appreciation among its global peers.
Finally, Tarar noted, the global non-proliferation architecture had changed in recent years, as policies and practices had eroded the sanctity of long-standing norms and legal instruments that underpinned the regime.
Pakistan, he said, believed in an equitable, non -discriminatory and criteria-based approach and hoped that considerations of nuclear safety and security would help, not hinder, the peaceful use of nuclear energy in support of development.