The theme of the 14th APSN meeting is "Strengthening Safeguards Implementation in Asia and the Pacific." This meeting was chaired by the Government of Thailand Cq. Office of Atom for Peace (OAP) and the Chairman of APSN for the 2023-2024 period.

The event was officially opened by Secretary General - OAP Thailand Pemsuk Sutchaphiwat which was attended by several countries including Australia, Indonesia, Canada, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, United States and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). The Indonesian delegation was led by Plt. Chairman of BAPETEN Sugeng Sumbarjo accompanied by Deputy Chairman of Licensing and Inspection Zainal Arifin, Director of Inspection of Nuclear Installations and Materials (DIIBN) Lukman Hakim, Head of the Bureau of Planning, Information and Finance (BPIK) Achmad Bussamah, Main Radiation Supervisor Dahlia Cakrawati Sinaga, and Safeguards Inspection Coordinator Kusbandono.

The meeting began with a Safeguards Seminar by Mohamed Lamari from the IAEA who in his opening delivered :

1. During the post-Covid-19 period, several countries have authorized the implementation of modified SPP, namely Brunei, Laos, and Papua New Guinea and Thailand
2. The importance of domestic inspections to fulfill reporting obligations and declarations to the IAEA completely and correctly
3. The need for understanding of LOF (Location Out of Facilities) operators in IAEA Safeguards obligations
4. Fulfillment of export and import control obligations for nuclear materials and equipment related to the nuclear material cycle, especially dual-use items

During the seminar, participants discussed various topics such as Implementation of a state-level approach to safeguards, detection and prevention of undeclared nuclear activities, knowledge and human resource management for safeguards and regional cooperation in safeguards.

In the meeting, separately also continued with a meeting between Indonesia and Australia in order to discuss an agreement to renew cooperation between BAPETEN and ASNO. ASNO asked Indonesia to support the creation of good practice guidelines in the implementation of domestic safeguards inspections as part of APSN activities.

The next meeting was the Steering Committee Meeting chaired by the Government of Japan Cq. Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Chairman of the Steering Committee for the 2023-2024 period, which was only attended by representatives of several countries, namely Australia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand as chairman of APSN and the United States as observer, Indonesia proposed increasing human resource capacity in preparation for the construction of nuclear power plants, while related to the chairmanship of APSN,proposed to be offered openly to the forum to obtain consensus from all APSN member countries.

In this APSN annual meeting, Indonesia conveyed several things, Indonesia's commitment to the treaty on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons through the signing of the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons which is now in the process of ratification and changes to the State Level Approach (SLA) for Indonesia. In addition, Indonesia said that discussions are currently being held with the House of Representatives regarding the Un Draft.

Here are the key points from the APSN committee meeting on 2 - 3 November , 2023:

• Improved implementation of the State Level Approach to safeguards:
• Detection and prevention of undeclared nuclear activities.
• Increased regional cooperation in safeguards:
• Improved knowledge management and human resource capacity for safeguards:
• Increased use of technology to increase the effectiveness of safeguards:
• Brunei, Laos and Papua as well as Timor Leste applied as APSN members
• The election of the APSN chairman for 2025 - 2026 to be carried out openly and transparently, it is also proposed that the election of the chairman be based on the alphabetical round flow of the names of member countries

Overall, the APSN committee meeting of 2 - 3 November 2023 is an important step forward in efforts to improve the effectiveness of safeguards in the Asia Pacific region. The recommendations resulting from this meeting will help APSN member states to improve the implementation of safeguards and to better prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

[DIIBN/Haryanto/BHKK/Da/VP/OR]