About 80 international delegates from 28 countries worldwide and 2 international organizations (International Atomic Energy Agency - IAEA and European Atomic Energy Community – Euratom) and domestic delegates from relevant ministries, agencies have jointly discussed to develop and promote a common understanding among international stakeholders with regard to the challenges, opportunities, and best practices for establishing and maintaining State Systems of Accounting for and Control of Nuclear Material (SSACs), a key requirement for successful Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) and Additional Protocol (AP) implementation.

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Addressing the opening speech, Deputy Director General Le Quang Hiep said we works earnestly to demonstrate our support and commitment to important nuclear nonproliferation issues. Last year, VN worked together with the IAEA, the USA, and Russia to implement the core conversion of the Dalat Research Reactor from highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel for return to Russia. VN is presently in the process of finalizing internal procedures for its involvement in the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and considering ratification of AP.

He also expressed thanks to IAEA and countries such as USA, Australia, Japan,… for their support for VN in nuclear safeguards field and hope this event will serve as an opportunity to build partnerships between the many countries, so that together, we can foster a community of experts committed to the implementation of international safeguards.

The meeting took place with plenary and breakout sessions. In the plenary session, delegated from the IAEA,USA, Finland, Australia, Canada, Korea had presentations about Implementing safeguards: perspectives from a State, important competencies for safeguards implementation, human resource development strategies as well as IAEA guide and SSAC. Vietnam’s representative presented coordinating bilateral and multilateral support.

The breakout sessions provided an opportunity for attendees to participate in an exercise developing a model SSAC that meets the needs of a fictitious country.

The record of these discussions will be used to assist the IAEA in developing further guidance for Member States, as well as to assist MS in developing collaborative approaches for implementing SSAC best practices.