Li Song, China's permanent representative to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna, on Thursday called on all parties to jointly promote the process of intergovernmental discussions within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to practice true multilateralism through practical actions.

Li made the remarks in a speech at a regular June meeting convened by the IAEA in Vienna, Austria.

During the speech, Li criticized the substance of the Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) agreement on nuclear submarines.

He said that the substance of the AUKUS agreement is that the U.S. and Britain, as two nuclear-weapon states, are engaged in nuclear submarine cooperation with Australia, a non-nuclear-weapon state and military ally, involving the transfer of several tonnes of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.

Li said that for well-known geopolitical purposes, the three countries had unprecedentedly crossed the threshold of the principles and practices of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and added that they had seriously undermined the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and posed a serious challenge to the institutional safeguards mechanism.

He said that the AUKUS agreement is a product of Cold War mentality and camp-based confrontation, and added that the three countries were attempting to "package the cooperation as a routine safeguards issue between non-nuclear-weapon states and the IAEA's secretariat" and this was "tantamount to a cover-up."

"The three countries claimed that planning arrangements with the IAEA's Secretariat would set a precedent for countries seeking naval reactors in the future. But who gave the three countries the right to do so?" Li asked.

Li urged the United States, Britain and Australia to faithfully fulfill their nuclear non-proliferation obligations, and maintain transparent communication with other parties on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

He stressed that China hoped the director general of the IAEA would fully respect and objectively reflect the different concerns of all parties, and requested that the secretariat complied with the statute of the IAEA and the mandates of member states, and safeguarded the IAEA's non-proliferation functions and authority.

After the meeting, Li said China's diplomatic efforts have deepened the understanding of IAEA members on the issue of AUKUS cooperation, and have pushed the IAEA's intergovernmental discussion process surrounding this issue to a deeper and more concrete level.

(Cover picture: Li Song, permanent representative of China to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna. /CFP)