Protesters stage a rally in opposition to Japanese authorities’s plan to launch handled radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear energy plant, on the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday, July 9, 2023.

Ahn Young-joon/AP

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Ahn Young-joon/AP

Protesters stage a rally in opposition to Japanese authorities’s plan to launch handled radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear energy plant, on the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday, July 9, 2023.

Ahn Young-joon/AP

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean opposition lawmakers sharply criticized the top of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog on Sunday for its approval of Japanese plans to launch handled wastewater from the broken Fukushima nuclear energy plant.

They met with Rafael Grossi in a tense assembly in Seoul that came about whereas protesters screamed outdoors the door.

Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director basic, arrived in South Korea over the weekend to have interaction with authorities officers and critics and assist cut back public considerations about meals security.

The IAEA final week accepted the Japanese discharge plans, saying the method would meet worldwide security requirements and pose negligible environmental and well being impacts. South Korea’s authorities has additionally endorsed the protection of the Japanese plans.

In his assembly with members of the liberal Democratic Party, which controls a majority in South Korea’s parliament, Grossi stated the IAEA’s assessment of the Japanese plans was primarily based on “transparent” and “scientific” analysis. He acknowledged considerations over how the Japanese plans would play out in actuality and stated the IAEA would set up a everlasting workplace in Fukushima to carefully monitor how the discharge course of is applied over the following three many years.

“Our conclusion has been that this plan, if it is carried out in the way it has been presented, would be in line, would be in conformity with the international safety standards,” Grossi stated.

The lawmakers responded by harshly criticizing IAEA’s assessment, which they are saying uncared for long-term environmental and well being impacts of the wastewater launch and threatens to set a foul precedent which will encourage different international locations to dispose nuclear waste into sea. They known as for Japan to scrap the discharge plans and work with neighboring international locations to search out safer methods to deal with the wastewater, together with a potential pursuit of long-term storage on land.

The celebration has additionally criticized the federal government of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for placing individuals’s well being in danger whereas making an attempt to enhance relations with Japan.

“If you think (the treated wastewater) is safe, I wonder whether you would be willing to suggest the Japanese government use that water for drinking or for industrial and agricultural purposes, rather than dumping it in the sea,” Woo Won-shik, a Democratic Party lawmaker who attended the assembly, instructed Grossi. The celebration stated Woo has been on a starvation strike for the previous 14 days to protest the Japanese discharge plans.

Further particulars from the assembly weren’t instantly accessible after reporters had been requested to depart following opening statements. Closely watched by parliamentary safety employees, dozens of protesters shouted close to the foyer of the National Assembly’s major corridor the place the assembly was happening, holding indicators denouncing the IAEA and Japan.

Grossi was to fly to New Zealand in a while Sunday and would then journey to the Cook Islands as he additional tries to reassure international locations within the area in regards to the Japanese plans.

Hundreds of demonstrators had additionally marched in downtown Seoul on Saturday demanding that Japan scrap its plans.

A large earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the Fukushima plant’s cooling programs, inflicting three reactors to soften and launch giant quantities of radiation.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the ability, has been storing the handled water in lots of of tanks that now cowl many of the plant and are practically full. Japanese officers say the tanks should be eliminated to make room to construct services for the plant’s decommissioning and to reduce the chance of leaks in case of one other main catastrophe. The tanks are anticipated to succeed in their capability of 1.37 million tons in early 2024.

Japan first introduced plans to discharge the handled water into the ocean in 2018, saying the water will probably be additional diluted by seawater earlier than being launched in a fastidiously managed course of that may take many years to finish.

The security of Fukushima’s wastewater has been a delicate situation for years between the U.S. allies. South Korea and Japan have been working in latest months to restore relations lengthy strained over wartime historic grievances to deal with shared considerations such because the North Korean nuclear risk and China’s assertive overseas coverage.

In an announcement launched by state media on Sunday, North Korea additionally criticized the Japanese discharge plans, warning in opposition to “fatal adverse impact on the human lives and security and ecological environment.” The assertion, which was attributed to an unidentified official in North Korea’s Ministry of Land and Environment Protection, additionally criticized Washington and Seoul for backing the Japanese plans.

“What matters is the unreasonable behavior of IAEA actively patronizing and facilitating Japan’s projected discharge of nuclear-polluted water, which is unimaginable,” it stated. “Worse still, the U.S. and (South) Korea openly express unseemly ‘welcome’ to Japan’s discharge plan that deserves condemnation and rejection, provoking strong anger of the public.”