New candidates for head of IAEA
28 April 2009
Yesterday's deadline for submission of candidates for the post of director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed with five names submitted.
The nominations are said to be: Samad Minty of South Africa, Yukiya Amano of Japan, Ernest Petric of Slovenia, Luis Echávarri of Spain and Jean-Pol Poncelet of Belgium. Each would have been put forward by their countries.
An IAEA spokesman told World Nuclear News the names could not be confirmed until informal discussions between the board chair Taous Feroukhi and the other governors had taken place and IAEA member states had been informed. The board is to attempt to reduce the number of potential candidates to two, but any number of the names could be formally announced as candidates in coming days.
Two sessions of voting in March saw the IAEA board unable to decide between Minty and Amano, who both currently serve as Ambassadors to the IAEA.
Petric is a former Ambassador from Slovenia to the IAEA, while Echávarri is the head of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency. Poncelet currently holds a senior post with Areva and has held the positions of energy minister, defence minister and deputy prime minister in Belgium.
The IAEA board wants to make an appointment by June to be submitted to the IAEA General Conference in September. The current IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, is to step down on 30 November after three four-year terms in the job.