BUENOS AIRES, December 27. /TASS/. Russia is ready to cooperate with Argentina in the sphere of nuclear energy, but so far the country's authorities are relying on national technologies, Ambassador to Buenos Aires Dmitry Feoktistov told a TASS correspondent at a reception to mark the end of the year.
"It is still unclear whether Argentina will be able to cope with these new ambitious tasks on its own or whether it will need the help of foreign partners. We have always told Buenos Aires that we, as the largest supplier of fuel and builder of nuclear reactors, are ready for mutually beneficial cooperation in this sphere, but so far we hear rather silence from Argentina in the economic bloc as a whole," he said.
Feoktistov pointed out that since 2018, the substantive discussion of large-scale nuclear energy projects with Argentina has been effectively frozen. "At that time, the Argentinians showed interest in various areas of this interaction, including the construction of large nuclear power plants, medium and small modular reactors, and a floating nuclear power plant. Then there was a long pause, which the Argentinians explain in many ways by the fact that they themselves cannot yet decide what their priorities are in the nuclear field. Lately we have been hearing more and more from them that such priorities are a bet on the national development of nuclear energy," the diplomat said.
Earlier in December, Argentinian President Javier Milei presented a new vector in the development of nuclear energy. According to him, the country intends to "lead the energy revolution and do it with technologies that are 100% Argentinean." The authorities have already announced the construction of a small modular reactor and giving impetus to the development of uranium deposits.