Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday that the country would build its third nuclear power plant within five years and that it would be a 100 percent domestic project.
At a press conference held after a three-hour meeting at the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Davutoglu said Turkey was catching up with the rest of the world regarding nuclear power, saying, “Turkey needed to wait until the 2000s to have it's first nuclear power plant, lagging behind many others.” He citing France and Japan as countries with far greater investment in nuclear power.
Turkey currently has two nuclear facility projects in the works. The first, slated for the southern province of Mersin, is being built by Russian-owned Akkuyu NPP JSC.
The second, a 4,800 megawatt plant expected to cost $22 billion, is to be built in the Black Sea region of Sinop through a cooperative agreement with a Japanese-French consortium that includes Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Itochu Corp. and GDF Suez.
But Davutoglu said the country's third project would be “100 percent national.”
Earlier this month, Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 83 Turkish nuclear engineering students would study in Russia for seven years in order to prepare to take over operation of the Akkuyu plant.
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