Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna, Austria, will begin a scheduled inspection of five major nuclear labs in Taiwan today.
The five IAEA experts will spend three days inspecting the laboratories' nuclear facilities and audit the radioactive materials the labs import from overseas.
The five labs being inspected are the Atomic Energy Council's (AEC) Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, the National Science Council's Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, National Chao Tung University and National Tsing Hua University.
The IAEA officials met with officials from the AEC, Taiwan's nuclear watchdog agency, yesterday and Monday.
Council officials said yesterday that IAEA inspection is a routine one.
They said the visitors would not be checking the ability of Taiwan's nuclear power plants to prevent terrorist attacks.
"The inspection is just one of the IAEA's regular ones and is irrelevant to recent anti-terrorism activities," said Chen Yi-bin (陳宜彬), director of the council's Department of Planning, at a press conference yesterday.
After the Sept.11 terrorist attacks on the US, the IAEA said that nuclear power plants around the world are structurally vulnerable to similar attacks.
Since then the international agency has worked with several countries to help them to prevent, intercept and respond to terrorist acts and other nuclear safety and security incidents.
AEC officials said yesterday that the IAEA inspectors would be checking the security of the five labs' nuclear facilities and reviewing videotapes from the labs' security cameras.
The IAEA officials will leave Taiwan on Saturday.
The IAEA inspection has inspired speculation in the local media about possible links to efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, coming as it does less than a week after the disclosure of North Korea's secret nuclear weapons program stunned the world.
Taiwan's covert nuclear wea-pons program, begun in 1964, was ended in 1988 due to pressure from the US.
AEC officials said yesterday that Taiwan's nuclear policies demonstrate that the country did not possess nuclear weapons and would respect the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Taiwan signed the treaty in 1968.
It has also implemented the IAEA's "Program 93+2," which is aimed at strengthening the existing safeguards system.
The IAEA conducts an average of 10 inspections a year of Taiwan's nuclear facilities and the nation has a good track record on its nuclear-related performance, according to the AEC.
Council officials said the IAEA is also promoting a random inspection program, which means that agency officials would not have to notify relevant agencies in a country about an inspection tour until after they arrived.
The council officials said that Taiwan would be glad to comply with the random inspection program if most other countries accept it as well.
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