13:45,
YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. The European Union welcomes the IAEA visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and will demand a full demilitarization of the area around the plant, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said upon arriving to Prague for the EU informal foreign ministerial meeting.
“The IAEA delegation is now on its way to Zaporizhzhia. We fully support [IAEA Director General] Grossi. We call for demilitarization around the largest nuclear power plant of Europe,” TASS quoted Borrell as saying.
A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) set off on Wednesday from the Ukrainian capital towards the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to inspect for damage after shelling nearby sparked fears of a radiation disaster, Reuters reported on August 31.
The mission is being led by the IAEA chief Rafael Grossi and comes after extensive negotiations.
"We are now finally moving after six months of strenuous efforts," Grossi told reporters before the convoy set off, adding that the mission planned to spend "a few days" at the site.
"We have a very important task there to perform – to assess the real situations there, to help stabilise the situation as much as we can."
He said the IAEA hoped to set up a permanent mission at the plant, which is being run by Ukrainian technicians. Grossi said one of the priorities of the mission would be speaking to them.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday hit out at what she described as “Europe’s inaction” regarding the crisis around the nuclear power plant (NPP) which according to Moscow is under continual attack by the Ukrainian military, emphasizing that this is cause for alarm and a ‘dangerous game’.
"[The right decision can be] the cessation of the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Any child can tell you that. In order to make the facility safe, it is necessary to stop shelling it. It is strange that adults do not understand this. This nuclear power plant is located in the heart of Europe. To pretend that no one understands the entire array of problems is a very dangerous game," the diplomat said in an interview with Sputnik radio on Wednesday.
The “out-of-control Kiev regime” has gone as far as using the nuke plant as a tool for blackmail, the spokeswoman stressed.
"But, perhaps, precisely because there is an understanding among the EU’s ranks that they cannot do anything – and the Kiev regime is just controlled by Washington while Brussels is also indirectly an instrument in US games – perhaps, this is why they simply distract the attention of their own population with endless anti-Russian sanctions," the diplomat pointed out.
"I sincerely hope that deep inside the Brussels bureaucracy, they are seriously pondering about the situation after all," Zakharova added.
"On the one hand, I have no desire to sow panic but this sense of inactivity by the leading European powers on this issue, which they have always regarded as extremely important verbally, evokes my feeling of alarm, to put it mildly," she said, pointing out that some time ago many European countries had given up nuclear power precisely due to safety concerns.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP).