China has called on Russia and Ukraine to ensure the safety of Ukraine's nuclear facilities, as fears mount over a potential environmental disaster amid an intensifying military offensive by Russia in the former Soviet state.
Addressing an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's top officials in Vienna on Wednesday, China's envoy Wang Qun said that China hopes that the relevant parties will act cautiously to avoid causing "man-made nuclear safety and security incidents."
"China is concerned about the safety, security and safeguards of nuclear facilities in Ukraine," Wang told the UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted a Chinese statement in UN.
Without naming Russia or Ukraine, Wang urged the two countries to work to ensure the safety of nuclear facilities.
"The IAEA should also take full consideration of the security situation in Ukraine in accordance with its mandate and properly address the issue of security protection in Ukraine," Wang added.
Ukraine's nuclear energy development started in the Soviet era, with the construction of the Chernobyl power plant near the capital Kyiv in the 1970s.
Also in 2013 China has signed a joint statement with Ukraine saying that the Chinese government will provide security to Kyiv promising if Ukraine is invaded using nuclear weapons or threatened by such invasion.
Asked will China take measures to protect Ukraine's security as per its assurances as Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country's nuclear forces to stay on high alert, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told media briefing here on Thursday that "according to documents such as statements made by states and the UN Security Council Resolution 984, nuclear-weapon states give security assurances to Ukraine and other non-nuclear-weapon states".
"The security assurances have clear limitations on the content and are triggered under specific conditions", he said.
"On the Ukraine issue, the pressing task now is for all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint, deescalate the situation and promote the political settlement," he said.
Ukraine, which became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, is now heavily dependent on nuclear energy, with 15 working reactors at four sites that generate about half of its electricity, the Post report said.
Concerns over the security of these nuclear facilities have been intensifying since Russian armed forces last Thursday captured the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant - the site of a deadly and environmentally damaging reactor accident in 1986 - hours after President Putin ordered a "military operation" in neighbouring Ukraine.
