MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. An intergovernmental agreement on the construction by Russia of a nuclear power plant in Egypt may be signed Wednesday after the talks in Moscow between the countries’ leaders, a source close to the negotiations has told TASS.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi began his three-day working visit to Russia on Tuesday and is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
"This signing [of agreement] is possible," the source said speaking on the prospects of concluding the deal on the sidelines of Wednesday’s negotiations in the Russian capital.
In early February 2015, during Putin’s visit to Cairo the two countries signed a document on mutual understanding in the nuclear energy sphere that in particular envisages cooperation in building the first NPP in Egypt.
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Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in early August that the intergovernmental agreement was almost ready. "There is already clarity on the technical parameters and the number of NPP units, and the major commercial conditions. We expect that the document will be signed during the next bilateral meeting at the highest level," he said.
Medvedev said both Russian and Egyptian companies were already preparing a package of contracts on the NPP construction and he expects that they will be inked in autumn this year.
The head of Russia’s state-owned civilian nuclear power corporation Rosatom, Sergey Kiriyenko, said Russia was ready to build four NPP units in El-Dabaa, northern Egypt.