INSPECTORS FOR NUCLEAR PLANT

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31092, 22 June 1966, Page 13

INSPECTORS FOR NUCLEAR PLANT

CN.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, June 21. Britain today signed an agreement in Vienna throwing open a big nuclear power station at Bradwell, Essex, to international inspection, the Foreign Office announced.

The purpose of the inspection is to ensure that the station is being put to peaceful uses only. It now will come under inspection by the International I Atomic Energy Agency in I Vienna and will be the j world’s largest to be put I under such safeguards. The agency is the international “watchdog” for the peaceful uses of atomic

energy. Five-Year Period A Foreign Office announcement said that Britain’s decision to let international inspectors into Bradwell station for a five-year period was “a demonstration of our belief in the value of the I.A.E.A. system.” It would be a valuable step along the path to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and Britain therefore hoped that other countries would follow her example, the announcement said. The United States recently also agreed to open up one of its power stations to similar safeguards. Surprise Visits Inspectors will be nominated by the agency and will be allowed to make unlimited

and surprise visits to the station. British officials said the agency’s inspectors could be drawn from any member State. Britain, they said, was willing to accept inspectors of any country, whether Communist or not, that had accepted the agency’s inspection within its own territory to ensure that nuclear material intended for a civil nuclear programme was not being diverted to military purposes.