In September last year, the US, the UK and Australia announced the decision of their nuclear submarine cooperation. The international community expressed grave concerns about a string of issues arising from the illicit transfers of nuclear weapon materials that the AUKUS will entail. The AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation is sheer nuclear proliferation and represents a serious non-proliferation challenge confronting the international community today and must be addressed properly. The Agency must in no way get involved in any acts of thinly disguised nuclear proliferation.

As it is known to all, along with promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, prevention of nuclear proliferation is the very raison d’etre and fundamental mandate of the Agency. According to Article III of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), each Non-Nuclear-Weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to negotiate and conclude Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements (CSA) with the IAEA in accordance with the Agency's Statute and its safeguards regime with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear materials from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Accordingly, the NPT has legally assigned the non-proliferation mandate to the Agency whose safeguards system, in turn, provides the institutional arrangements for implementing that mandate. 

Maintaining the NPT, performing non-proliferation functions and not advancing any military purpose are the original purpose of the Agency and its foundation, which must be consistent and unwavering. Upholding the non-proliferation mandate of the Agency is nothing but maintaining the NPT and the international non-proliferation regime. As the current international non-proliferation regime is constantly facing new risks and challenges, the importance of achieving this goal becomes ever more imperative. The Agency must in no way get involved in any acts of thinly disguised nuclear proliferation.

In view of the fact that AUKUS is, by its very nature, an act of flagrant nuclear proliferation, the Agency's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA), and in particular its Article 14 (Exclusion Clause), cannot be invoked to give it the fig leaf of legitimacy.