NPSGlobal, 21 Feb 2011.

According to consulted sources, the Argentine diplomat Rafael Mariano Grossi, current Chief of Staff of the IAEA's Director General, Japanese Yukiya Amano, will take next April the position of Assistant Director General for Political Affairs of the international agency based in Vienna. Director General Amano announced this in the meeting he held with Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister Hector Timerman, today in Vienna.

Grossi, who was Director General of Political Coordination of the Argentine Foreign Affairs Ministry until 2009, is expert on security and nonproliferation issues, and has already served in another international organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague. There, Grossi also acted as Chief of Staff.

The Argentine official had been serving as Chief of Staff of the Director General of the nuclear agency since January 2010. Effective April 1st 2011 he will be promoted to the new position, keeping his functions as Chief of Cabinet.

Amano highlighted that this designation constitutes as well a recognition to the role of Latin America, and especially of Argentina, on matters of peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

This is the first time that Argentina occupies a position in the top leadership level of the international agency in charge of ensuring the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and promoting peaceful uses of nuclear energy around the world.

Rafael Grossi has been closely identified with the NPSGlobal Foundation's goals since its very start up. He had accompanied from his different roles many the NPSGlobal's initiatives. He is a member of the Regional Postgraduate Course in Disarmament and Nonproliferation teaching staff, and was an outstanding speaker at the Seminar Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation - The Future of the NPT, held in Rio de Janeiro on November 2009.

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