The Secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that Yukiya Amano, the Director General of the Agency, has died at the age of 72.
The Latvian Foreign Ministry conveys its deepest condolences to Mr. Amano’s friends, relatives, and his colleagues at the IAEA.
The death of the long-serving IAEA Director General is a heavy loss for those in the community working on questions of disarmament and non-proliferation.
Yukiya Amano was an experienced Japanese diplomat,who headed the Agency since 2009 and actively promoted the use of nuclear technology for peaceful means including for the benefit of science and medicine, so as to reduce economic inequality, and to promote sustainable development, while increasing food security and access to food especially in regions of the world facing food shortages.
Director General Yukiya Amano played a key role in the negotiation process over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for limiting Iran’s nuclear program, taking into account that the IAEA is tasked with supervising the implementation of the JCPOA.
The mission of the IAEA is to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons while at the same time contributing to the use of nuclear power and related technologies for peaceful purposes. Latvia joined the IAEA in 1997 and from 2015-2017, while serving on the IAEA Board of Governors, led work in the joint consultation process for preparing the 2018-2023 Medium-Term Strategy https://www.iaea.org/about/overview/medium-term-strategy.
