International Atomic Agency to Look at Radioactive Smuggling

The deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Ana Maria Cetto, will visit Tajikistan from 24 to 27 May, meeting President Imomali Rahmon, the foreign minister, health minister and the head of the Tajik Academy of Sciences to discuss nuclear and radiation safety.



Independent observers predict Cetto will raise an incident in December last year, when eight people were detained at Dushanbe airport on suspicion of smuggling the radioactive elements plutonium, plutonium, beryllium and caesium-137 out of the country. In early May, the IAEA asked the Tajik Academy of Sciences for an official explanation as to how such material ended up in the hands of smugglers.