Korea to send 21-person team to inspect Fukushima plant

Diplomacy

Published: 19 May. 2023, 12:01 Updated: 24 May. 2023, 17:14

Korea to send 21-person team to inspect Fukushima plant

South Korean government officials hold a press conference regarding Korea's inspection team to the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan on Friday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Korea will send a 21-person inspection team to the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan from Sunday to Friday.

Seoul's Government Policy Coordination Office and Nuclear Safety and Security Commission made the announcement in a press briefing Friday morning.

"We will examine the ALPS [Advanced Liquid Processing System] and the concentration analysis of ALPS-treated contaminated water," said Yoo Guk-hee, chairman of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, who will lead the team. "Then we will meet with the Japanese experts to ask questions based on what we saw."

The team will consist of 19 experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and one from the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, in addition to Yoo.

They will travel to Japan on Sunday and meet with the relevant Japanese organizations on Monday.

They will inspect the plant from Tuesday to Wednesday and meet with the relevant experts and organizations in Japan on Thursday to request further information and discuss their inspection results in person before returning Friday.

The team of experts will not be collecting samples of the treated water during this visit.

"Running analysis on treated water is something that we are already doing as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency," said a senior-ranking official of the Office of Government Policy Coordination on Friday. "Collecting samples was not part of our list of requests to the Japanese side."

They will release a public report of what they could inspect on the site after returning from the trip.

An additional advisory group consisting of 10 private scientists has been set up to analyze the team's findings, said the Office of Government Policy Coordination.

Korea and Japan have been holding negotiations for the past few weeks to hone down on the details of the upcoming Korean trip to Japan to inspect the plant and its site before Japan releases treated water into the ocean.

The trip was announced by President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in their summit in Seoul earlier in May, which followed Yoon's visit to Tokyo in March, the first of its kind in 12 years.

Vowing to return the bilateral relations back on its track after years of soured ties centered on diplomatic spats on several issues, including the compensation of Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor, the two leaders struck several agreements, one of which was giving access to a Korean team to visit and inspect the Fukushima plant.

A massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011, destroying the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Japan announced its plan to gradually release tons of treated radioactive water from the defunct power plant into the sea in 2021, drawing strong opposition from fishing communities at home and abroad.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has said that all radioactive materials have been removed from the water except tritium, which experts say is not harmful to human health in small amounts.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has supported the plan.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]