The head of the UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, has died after suffering poor health for some time, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday, as international tensions run high over Iran\u2019s nuclear activities.The longtime Japanese diplomat, who was 72, held the IAEA\u2019s top job since December 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency regrets to inform with deepest sadness of the passing away of Director General Yukiya Amano,\u201d the IAEA said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said that Amano died July 18. But his family had only informed the IAEA late Sunday, \u201cwith the specific request not to disclose it until the family funeral had taken place on 22 July in a quiet atmosphere.\u201d No details were given about the cause of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During his 10 years at the helm, Amano oversaw the signing of a landmark deal in 2015 between Iran and six major powers Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States under which the Islamic republic agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amano took over from Egypt\u2019s Mohamed ElBaradei in 2009. And his third term as IAEA chief had originally been due to expire in November 2021, but he had been expected to announce his intention to step down early because of undisclosed health reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi expressed his \u201cdeep condolences\u201d in a tweet, saying: \u201cI commend his skillful & professional performance as DG of IAEA\u2026 May the Almighty bless his soul.\u201d Washington\u2019s ambassador to the international organisations in Vienna, Jackie Wolcott, said the United States \u201cand all nuclear non-proliferation advocates have lost a great friend, and the United Nations family has lost an exceptional public servant .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In retaliation to Trump\u2019s withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran announced earlier this month that it no longer felt bound by some of the terms of the pact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The head of the UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, has died after suffering poor health for some time, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday, as international tensions run high over Iran\u2019s nuclear activities.The longtime Japanese diplomat, who was 72, held the IAEA\u2019s top job since December 2009. \u201cThe secretariat of the International Atomic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66514,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66512\/revisions\/66514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}