ANKARA, March 13, /ITAR-TASS/. The situation in Ukraine has no impact on the implementation of bilateral arrangements on nuclear energy, Sergei Kiriyenko, director-general of the State Corporation Rosatom, said at the meeting with Taner Yildiz, Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.
“As the arrangements on nuclear energy are of a long-term nature, they are unaffected by transient political events. The political relations between Russia and Ukraine are entangled today, but Russia operates nuclear stations in Ukraine, and they continue to function without problems,” he said. Kiriyenko also noted that relations between Russia and the United States had developed considerably over the past twenty years, and US nuclear power plants burned Russian fuel.
Regarding the matter of approval by the Turkish side of environmental impact assessment of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant project, Kiriyenko noted that “certain standards of environmental impact assessment are used in the world. “Turkish specialists,” he said, “ask many more questions, and, as we can see, most of them are unrelated to environmental impact assessment, but, in view of our trusting relations, we have prepared extensive answers.” Kiriyenko has said Rosatom is ready to cooperate with Turkish companies not only in the framework of the Akkuyu NPP project, but also in the implementation of projects for NPP construction in third countries.
Yildiz, in his turn, said that Turkey is determined to build the nuclear power plant.
“All our departments and ministries share the view on the matter in the framework of law. We intend to put into operation the first reactor in 2019, not to leave this for 2020,” Yildiz said.