UN chief candidate Grossi says diplomacy crucial for peace and security - CGTN exclusive

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, discusses a wide range of topics exclusively with CGTN Europe at Davos

Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday his Board of Peace "might" replace the United Nations and any alarm bells that may have already been ringing about the collapse of the world's biggest multilateral organizations would have been sounding a whole lot noisier.

In 2025 the US withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization and as it continues its aggressive course of America First policy, including most recently its desires to own Greenland, it seems the US President has the UN in its sights.

Trump said: "The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them, I never even thought to go to."

The future of the UN might be Rafael Grossi's concern if he gets his wish of being at the helm. The 64-year-old Argentinian, currently Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 2019, is an official candidate to replace UN Director General António Guterres in 2027.

Active diplomacy

Three months after saying the UN had "lost its ability for active diplomacy", Grossi revealed his current assessment and what he would do to regain international trust in the organization in an exclusive interview with CGTN Europe at Davos where the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place.

"I don't think it has lost the ability," Grossi said. "It's not exercising it, maybe and that is an important matter. What inspires me to say this is not some vision I may have, it's my own experience. The IAEA has been acting on behalf of the international community quite effectively, although, of course, the jury is still out and we hope everything will be OK when it comes to Russia, Ukraine and Iran.

"What we can see, there is a place where international platforms and  international organizations can, and I'm not saying they must or they will, but they can play a very useful role and we have been doing that. 

"For the United Nations which was created 80 years ago, the main goal was the preservation of international peace and security. We're living in times, unfortunately perhaps for our generation, that this is a challenge, where fragmentation, conflict and war is coming back. So if the UN is nowhere to be seen, then we have a problem. We have to try to restore the UN to that position. I think I can do it."

During his tenure at the IAEA, Grossi has dealt with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the safety and security of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, along with the suspension of inspections of Iran's nuclear programme in the aftermath of US-Israeli strikes. 

"Multinational platforms are being questioned or challenged in all of this," Grossi added. "But what I'm doing between Ukraine and Russia, what we are doing in Iran, what we are trying to do in Syria, what we have being doing in other places, in Iraq, would have never been possible through a national or sub-regional platform. 

"It's because we have a global institution which is respected. We have a set of rules we are applying. We have the technical capability to be objective and to tell the truth to everybody about the realities there. 

"With the Ukraine-Russian war, we saw in the beginning all sorts of narratives and versions and fake stories about what was happening in Chernobyl. Now we have the IAEA there and that has stopped because we are there and we told and we tell the truth. 

"You can have one or the other saying things immediately and our inspectors will set the record straight and explain what is happening. People have opinions but we say things as they are and I have the capacity through that. 

"With me talking to Russia's President Putin, Ukraine's Zelenskyy, being in Washington, Paris, London, and all the big capitals of the world, the IAEA has this level of dialogue which is indispensable and which is lacking elsewhere. 

"The power does not lie in the United Nations, but the art of diplomacy. That is to position the institution in a way that big powers will see that there is advantage in building the bridges and the bridges can be built through impartial neutral actors, not by one. The experience in Ukraine, Russia, or in Iran has proven so far."

Could he repeat this success with the world's top leaders if he gets the vote to lead the UN next year? 

"I'm already doing it with the IAEA," Grossi said. "I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to do it with the UN, maybe even better. I think the IAEA has a very crucial mission, of course, but the UN has a wider platform, a wider area of concern, so I hope there will be even more support to this kind of work."