(AFP) – 1 day ago
ANKARA — Turkey will invite Japanese industrial giant Toshiba for talks on building a nuclear power plant after negotiations with South Korea hit snags, a Turkish minister was quoted saying Saturday.
The invitation to Toshiba will be extended next week, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said in Seoul, where he accompanied Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Group 20 summit, Anatolia news agency reported.
Yildiz made the remarks after a meeting between Erdogan and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak failed to resolve differences on a possible deal to build a nuclear power plant in northern Turkey, estimated to worth about 20 billion dollars (14.6 billion euros).
“We failed to overcome (disagreements on) certain issues at this meeting… Some improved conditions were proposed and we said we would evaluate them,” Anatolia quoted the minister as saying.
“But we will begin contacts with other countries as well. We have to enter into a speedy negotiation process,” he said, adding that US and European companies would also be considered as possible partners.
The state power companies of Turkey and South Korea, EUAS and KEPCO, had signed a preliminary deal in March paving the way for talks aimed at concluding an inter-governmental agreement to build a nuclear power plant at Sinop, on Turkey’s northern Black Sea coast.
Yildiz said earlier this week the talks had snagged on issues concerning financial terms, treasury guarantees and the distribution of shares in the planned company that would build and operate the plant.
Overriding opposition from environmentalists, Turkey signed a deal worth 20 billion dollars with Russia in May to build the country’s first nuclear power plant, at Akkuyu on the southern Mediterranean coast.
Ankara’s objective is to have nuclear plants up and running in at least two regions in 2023.
The talks with Russia and South Korea came as part of renewed Turkish efforts to acquire atomic energy after an initial tender failed last year.
Turkey plans to build a total of three nuclear power plants in hopes of preventing a possible energy shortage and reducing dependence on foreign supplies.
Ankara abandoned an earlier plan to build a nuclear plant at Akkuyu in 2000 amid a severe financial crisis and protests from environmentalists.
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