The IAEA, a United Nations agency, has signed an agreement with the Japanese Government to work together in an effort to keep the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games safe from nuclear terrorism ©Getty Images

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has signed an agreement with the Japanese Government to work together in an effort to keep the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games safe from nuclear terrorism.

The agreement between IAEA’s director general Yukiya Amano and Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Tarō Kōno was signed in Austria's capital Vienna, where the IAEA is based.

"We want to thoroughly cooperate with the IAEA to make sure the Olympics are safe," Kōno was reported as saying by Japan's Kyodo News before the meeting.

The IAEA, a United Nations agency, said in a statement that the possible areas of cooperation include it "offering Japanese authorities training courses, workshops, technical visits and exercises related to nuclear security, hosting preparatory technical meetings and lending supplementary radiation detection equipment".

"The know-how of the agency will boost the security of the Games," Norio Maruyama, spokesman for Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs, told Agence France-Presse.

He added that although the agreement is not directly related to a nuclear threat from North Korea, "the uncertainty exists and we must use all means necessary to eliminate this uncertainty".

Relations between North Korea and Japan are severely strained at the moment.

North Korean citizens are currently banned from entering Japan.

Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Tarō Kōno, left, and IAEA director general Yukiya Amano, right, have signed a cooperation agreement to help ensure Tokyo 2020 is safe from a nuclear attack ©Getty Images
Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Tarō Kōno, left, and IAEA director general Yukiya Amano, right, have signed a cooperation agreement to help ensure Tokyo 2020 is safe from a nuclear attack ©Getty Images

This is caused by North Korea's nuclear programme under supreme leader Kim Jong-un and also lingering tension over abductions of Japanese citizens by agents of the North Korean Government which occurred during a period of six years from 1977 to 1983.

Last week, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach promised it will facilitate the participation of North Korean athletes at Tokyo 2020. 

North Korea has been taking part here at the Winter Olympics, which begun on February 9.

The two Koreas, still technically at war, marched together under the unification flag at the Opening Ceremony and, for the first time in Olympic history, are competing together as part of a unified Korean women's ice hockey team.

Bach claimed during the recent IOC Session here that Pyeongchang 2018 has "brought real hope" to everybody in the Korean Peninsula by encouraging better relations between North and South.

He told Kyodo News that the IOC "will take the same approach in every respect with regard to Tokyo 2020 as we took with Pyeongchang 2018".

The IAEA often works to ensure nuclear safety at major international events.

It was called upon in the build-up to Rio 2016 and used an eradicator device in Brazil to blast mosquitoes spreading the Zika virus with gamma rays.