Saudi Arabia plans to allow tougher nuclear oversight by IAEA this year

Saudi Arabia plans to scrap light-touch oversight of its nuclear facilities by the U.N. atomic watchdog and switch to regular safeguards by the end of this year, the kingdom said on Monday, a step the watchdog has long been calling for.

Saudi Arabia has a nascent nuclear programme that it wants to expand to eventually include activities like proliferation-sensitive uranium enrichment. It is unclear where its ambitions end, since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said for years it will develop nuclear weapons if regional rival Iran does.

Riyadh has yet to fire up its first nuclear reactor, which allows its programme to still be monitored under the Small Quantities Protocol (SQP), an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency that exempts less advanced states from many reporting obligations and inspections.

"The kingdom ... has submitted a request to the agency in July 2024 to rescind the Small Quantities Protocol and implement to the full Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement," Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the IAEA's annual General Conference, speaking through an interpreter.

"We are currently working with the agency to finalise all necessary subsidiary agreements for the SQP to be effectively rescinded by the end of December of this year."

Prince Abdulaziz announced a year ago that his country had decided to scrap the SQP but he did not say when it would switch and there were no immediate signs that it was following through.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has been calling on the dozens of states that still have SQPs to amend or rescind them, calling them a "weakness" in the global non-proliferation regime. 

The IAEA has for years been in talks with Riyadh on making the switch to a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement that covers issues like inspections in countries that have ratified the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"Saudi Arabia's decision to rescind its Small Quantities Protocol increases (the IAEA)'s ability to verify the peaceful use of nuclear material in the country," Grossi said on social media platform X, adding he commended Riyadh for the move.

Neither Grossi nor Prince Abdulaziz mentioned the Additional Protocol, a supplementary agreement that allows more thorough oversight than the CSA, including snap inspections by the agency. While the IAEA would like Saudi Arabia to sign the Additional Protocol, it has been unclear whether it will.