“The day has come”. With these words, the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, announced the start of the mission that will bring the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Zaporizhzhia plant within the week. A trip to “protect the safety of the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and Europe”. Grossi attaches a photo to the announcement and among the 13 experts there is also an Italian: Massimo Aparo, Deputy Director General and Director of the Agency’s Safeguard Department.
Pistoiese but Roman by adoption, born in 1953, Aparo graduated in nuclear engineering from Sapienza in Rome. He worked as general manager of an Italian company specializing in radiation detection and monitoring, then he also had experience in the European Space Agency and Enea.
In 1997 he joined the IAEA, where he first held the functions of Head of the Division of Technical and Scientific Services, then that of Head of the Tokyo Regional Office in the Division of Operations A, with responsibility for the supervision of the UN missions on the security of nuclear plants in Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan and other Asian countries.
Not only. In 2015, following the UN resolution, he was appointed Head of the Iran Task Force, an operational unit created with the task of verifying and controlling that all nuclear technology states of Iran are limited to scientific research and are consistent with standards required under penalty of lifting international sanctions.
On 11 May 2018, after more than 20 years of brilliant career behind him, Aparo was appointed Deputy Director General and Head of the Safeguard Department in the IAEA by Japanese General Manager Yukiya Amano, following the resignation of Finnish Tero Varjoranta.