Japan officially nominates Ambassador Amano as ElBaradei successor

Sep 26, 2008, 10:43 GMT

Vienna - Japan has officially nominated its United Nations ambassador in Vienna, Yukiya Amano, as a candidate for succeeding Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Japanese foreign ministry said Friday.

As Director General ElBaradei's third term in office at the Vienna- based agency ends in November 2009, IAEA member states have time until the end of this year to name their candidates.

Amano previously served as Director-General of his ministry's Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Science Department.

In his career, the diplomat 'gained substantial and far-reaching experience in the areas of non-proliferation, disarmament and nuclear energy-related matters, and is now an internationally renowned diplomat,' the foreign ministry said in its statement.

The other declared candidate so far is Abdul S. Minty, South Africa's representative on the IAEA board and chair of the South African Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Diplomats in Vienna have also mentioned Rogelio Pfirter, the Argentinian head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague, as a possible candidate.

Though Pfirter told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur in an email that he had no comment at this stage, he added that 'it is difficult to predict the future.'

The Argentinian diplomat also said he was fully committed to his responsibilities at the OPCW, where his term ends in July 2010.