Senior leaders at the Department of Energy offered condolences Monday for the family of Yukiya Amano, who died late last week after announcing he would resign as director general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The agency, which guards against the spread of fissile material and promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy, announced Amano’s death in a statement Monday. The U.N. did not detail the cause of death. Media reported last week that Amano, 72, would step down early into his third four-year term as director general due to poor health.
“My prayers are with Amano family as they mourn the loss of Director General Yukiya Amano. For a decade he operated [the IAEA] with great leadership and professionalism,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry wrote on Twitter. “His measured and thoughtful approach to the IAEA will be greatly missed.”
National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty tweeted that Amano was “a true leader and promoter of nuclear nonproliferation and peaceful use of nuclear technologies,” and that his “untimely passing is a great loss for Japan, our Nation, and our world.”
Amano, a seasoned Japanese diplomat born two years after the end of World War II, became director general in 2009. He was previously Japan’s resident representative to the IAEA. Under his watch, the IAEA responded to the disastrous 2011 meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
Amano also had a front row seat for the 2015 creation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): the multilateral deal that sought to limit Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. The Barack Obama administration spearheaded the pact, but the Donald Trump administration ceased complying with the deal in 2017.
The JCPOA curbed Iranian production of fissile material in exchange for sanctions relief.
On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said he was “[s]addened to hear of IAEA Chief Yukio Amano’s untimely demise.” Zarif said Aman was “a stalwart supporter of the JCPOA from its inception, and we expect his successor to follow the same path.”
The IAEA had not identified a full-time successor for Amano at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. The body appointed Cornel Feruta of Romania as its acting director.
