(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) VIENNA, April 9 (KUNA) -- The IAEA Board of Governors will convene a meeting at the Agency's HQ at Vienna International Centre (VIC) on Thursday, 11 April, to discuss the worsening security situation at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
Chair of the 35-member Board Ambassador Holger Federico Martinsen is convening the meeting following requests in two separate letters addressed to him by the Russian Federation and Ukraine, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a press release on Tuesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed about a further drone attack on ZNPP on Tuesday, in the latest indication of a major worsening of the nuclear safety and security situation at the site.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has said the IAEA team of experts stationed at the plant - who verified the impact of several such attacks on Sunday - reported hearing bursts of rifle fire followed by a loud explosion at 11:05 am local time on Tuesday, the same time that the ZNPP later said an incoming drone had detonated on the roof of the facility's training centre.
The incident added to deepening concern about the already highly precarious nuclear safety and security situation at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, which has been shelled several times since the conflict started in February 2022 and lost all off-site power eight times.
The training centre is located just outside the site perimeter, around half a kilometre from reactor unit 1, and the incident did not pose any threat to nuclear safety and security at the ZNPP, whose six reactors have all been shut down for the past 20 months.
However, there are ZNPP staff routinely present in the training centre. The IAEA team requested immediate access to the building to assess the possible impact but was informed that the military security situation did not allow it.
The team will continue to seek such access, as they did and received on Sunday, Director General pointed out.
"Today's (Tuesday's) reported incident - although outside the site perimeter - is an ominous development as it indicates an apparent readiness to continue these attacks, despite the grave dangers they pose to nuclear safety and security and our repeated calls for military restraint.
"Whoever is behind them, they are playing with fire. Attacking a nuclear power plant is extremely irresponsible and dangerous, and it must stop," Grossi warned.
Sunday's drone strikes signalled a serious new threat to plant safety as it was the first time since November 2022 that the ZNPP was directly targeted in military action.
"It also represented the first clear violation of the five concrete principles for protecting the facility established by Director General Grossi at the United Nations Security Council in May last year, Grossi added.
In addition to the incidents on Sunday and Tuesday, which were backed up by the observations of the IAEA team, the Agency experts were also informed by the ZNPP about other similar events over the past few days. (end)
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