In his opening statement, IAEA Director General Grossi skillfully positioned the IAEA as an important international player and highlighted its achievements. The general debate, which attracted numerous ministers and high-level representatives, revealed the diverging priorities of the member states. The West is concerned with nuclear safety and security in Ukraine and the safeguards in Iran and the DPRK, while the Global South wants to discuss technical cooperation and technology transfers. RUS and CHN are taking advantage of this and positioning themselves as willing partners and exporters. Furthermore, geopolitical interests are currently overshadowing the common interests in a strong nuclear non-proliferation architecture and the safe and secure development of nuclear energy and nuclear applications. This can be seen, among other things, in the debates on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes, on AUKUS, the nuclear facilities in Ukraine, etc.

In substantive terms, Switzerland should maintain its current course and continue to invest in its high level of credibility in the IAEA context. Its balanced political positions and regular voluntary financial contributions are very much needed and appreciated. In the context of the nuclear challenges in Ukraine, it should be carefully examined whether a further contribution to the IAEA missions in Ukraine is possible. The IAEA General Conference remains one of the most important conferences in the multilateral calendar and offers Switzerland high-level access to the delegations present and the IAEA Secretariat.

The Swiss delegation to the OSCE, in cooperation with the Netherlands, organised a side event on the opportunities and risks of greater involvement of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity, thus actively contributing to the further development of confidence- and security-building measures in the cyber area. This event offered the participating states a first insight into the much-discussed and often misunderstood topic of artificial intelligence (AI) on the margins of the OSCE Informal Working Group on Cyber.

The successful side event attracted 40 delegations and facilitated an interactive debate with powerful contributions from the two panelists from Switzerland, Katharina Frey Bossoni from the Swiss FDFA and Mateo Rojas-Carulla, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Lakera, and from the Netherlands, Dr Roy Lindelauf, Professor of Data Science at the Netherlands Defence Academy. Collaboration between academia, governments and the private sector is crucial for the development of effective policies and regulations, and Switzerland promotes such an inclusive working environment in the OSCE.

The platform allowed the experts to discuss the growing importance of AI and its potential threats, such as its possible misuse for misinformation campaigns and cyberattacks, especially on vulnerable systems such as smart grids. Large-scale language models such as ChatGPT are of particular concern due to their versatility and ease of use.  Securing these models is a major challenge as malicious actors can exploit them with readily available data. The discussion emphasised the need for proactive security measures, clear regulations and international cooperation to counter the evolving threats posed by AI.