Turkey: Main opposition backs green nuclear energy

By Muhammet Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s main opposition on Wednesday expressed support for environmentally friendly and secure nuclear technology.

At a press conference in parliament on Wednesday, Ozturk Yilmaz, Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy chair and lawmaker from the eastern Ardahan province, said: "We support a variety of energy, we also give support to nuclear energy, if it is environmentally friendly, environmentalist, and secure."

Yilmaz added that Turkey should primarily produce energy using its local resources.

"We are surely against technology that is unsafe and disrespectful to the environment, but we can’t be against technology" in general, he said.

Yilmaz's remarks came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant on Tuesday.

The Akkuyu project started with a 2010 intergovernmental agreement between Turkey and Russia.

The plant, made up of four reactors, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts, is being built by Russian state nuclear energy agency Rosatom.

At full capacity it will produce 35 billion kilowatts of electricity, which will meet about 10 percent of Turkey's electricity needs.

At present, worldwide there are 450 nuclear power plants in 31 countries, while 55 plants are under construction. With Akkuyu, the number of power plants under construction will be 56.