South Korea and Japan have agreed that a delegation from Seoul will visit Japan for four days to assess Tokyo’s plan to dump radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the Seoul Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Working-level officials from the two countries held a meeting in Seoul on Friday to discuss details of the South Korean experts’ planned visit to the nuclear plant. The meeting lasted 12 hours until around 2 am on Saturday.
The two sides agreed to the team’s four-day visit during the meeting and will hold further consultation in the coming days, the ministry said.
The CEO-level meeting came after President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reached an agreement on the visit during a summit on Sunday.
It was led by Yun Hyun-soo, head of the climate change, energy, environment and science office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the South Korean side, and Atsushi Kaifu, director general of Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Science at the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Japan. department.
The South Korean Nuclear Safety and Protection Commission, as well as the Japan Nuclear Regulatory Authority and Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., the operator of the crippled power plant, also attended the meeting.
On Friday, Park Ku-yeon, first deputy head of the Government Policy Coordination Office, told a press conference that the inspection team will consist of about 20 safety regulation experts, check the operation of treatment facilities and discharge in Fukushima and will secure the information. South Korea needs to carry out a scientific evaluation of the contaminated water. He is reportedly planning to visit Japan starting May 23.
The inspection comes amid concerns about potential health and environmental risks from the release of more than 1 million tons of water from the destroyed plant.
The two countries appear to have disagreed over the team’s mission during the meeting. Seoul has said the inspection is aimed at checking the safety of the unloading process, but Tokyo has suggested a limited scope for its activity.
Speaking at a press conference earlier this week, Japanese Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said the inspection is intended to “help deepen understanding” about the security of the release, not to test or certify its security.
The Fukushima plant has stored more than 1.3 million tons of water through a custom purification system known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System since three reactors melted down after a powerful earthquake struck the coast in March 2011.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230513000057
