Hans Blix

Short Biography

Hans Martin Blix ( listen ; born 28 June 1928) is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979) and later became the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As such, Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union on site, and lead the agency response to them. Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos. In 2002, the commission notably began searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none. In February 2010, the government of the United Arab Emirates announced that Blix would be the head of an advisory board for its nuclear power program.