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Romanian diploma Cornel Feruta might become the new chief of IAEA
Romanian diplomat Cornel Feruta might become the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General, according to diplomatic sources quoted by Reuters, who reported that the incumbent chief, Japanese Yukiya Amano intends to resign next year.
Amano’s health has visibly declined since the IAEA announced last September that he had undergone an unspecified medical procedure outside Austria, where his agency is based. He has, however, remained in charge of IAEA operations and continued to run the agency, officials familiar with the agency say. A successor has to get the green light of the IAEA’s General Conference, a meeting of all its member states, within its regular annual meeting due in September this year.
“Two likely candidates to succeed Amano are Argentina’s ambassador to the IAEA Rafael Grossi, who had been expected to run against Amano before but chose not to, and Romania’s Cornel Feruta, the IAEA’s chief coordinator and effectively Amano’s chief of staff,” Reuters reports.
Amano, a 72-year-old Japanese diplomat, was reappointed in 2017 to a third four-year term in charge of the International Atomic Energy Agency, until Nov. 30, 2021.
Cornel Feruta, appointed Chief Coordinator of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2013, thus coordinating the internal and external activities of the IAEA, is a career diplomat, working within the Romanian Foreign Ministry since the 90s. Feruta was granted the rank of ambassador by former president Traian Basescu in 2014.
His experience in the national diplomatic service includes senior positions in the directorates for the OSCE, Western Balkans, as Head of the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director General for Political Affairs. He served as Romania’s Resident Representative to the international organizations in Vienna between 2007 and 2012. The international experience of the Romanian diplomat also includes the positions of vice-president of the IAEA Board of Governors (2008-2010), chair of the 55th IAEA General Conference and chair of the second Preparatory Committee for the NPT Review Conference (2013), according to MFA.
Cornel Feruta was also part of the delegation that negotiated the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015.