Azerbaijan and Turkey seek to damage Armenian economy: MP says
05.04.2011,
23:02
A senior member of the Armenian parliament slammed today Azerbaijan and Turkey for their coordinated efforts to demand the closure of the Armenian nuclear power plant.
YEREVAN, April 5, /ARKA/. A senior member of the Armenian parliament slammed today Azerbaijan and Turkey for their coordinated efforts to demand the closure of the Armenian nuclear power plant. Speaking to journalists, Hrayr Karapetian, chairman of a parliament committee on defense and national security issues form the Armenian Revolutionary Federation/Dashnaktsutyun, said the ultimate goal of Baku and Ankara is to damage Armenia’s economic potential.
He said representatives of Turkey and Azerbaijan renewed their demand that Armenian nuclear power plant be shut down during a NATO seminar on the role of parliaments in arms control in Geneva March 31-April 1.
Hrayr Karapetian said the blockade of Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijani failed and now they are trying to make the international community place pressure on Armenia and force it to close its nuclear power plant. According to him, that would result in heavy economic consequences. Hrayr Karapetian said he diffused the concerns of other participants of the seminar citing numerous conclusions by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Metsamor plant is now reliable enough to withstand a powerful earthquake similar to the 1988 calamity.
‘We are faced by a new reality. Never before Turkey and Azerbaijan have coordinated their anti-Armenian efforts as they do now. We need to close our ranks to be able to respond,’ he said.
The Metsamor plant is located some 30 kilometers west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230 light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. Armenian authorities said they will build a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging Metsamor plant.
The new plant is supposed to operate at twice the capacity of the Soviet-constructed facility. Metsamor currently generates some 40 percent of Armenia's electricity. But the government has yet to attract funding for the project that was estimated by a U.S.-funded feasibility study to cost at as much as $5 billion. Under a 2003 agreement Armenian nuclear power plant's financial flows are managed by Russian Inter RAO UES, owned by Russian state-run Rosatom corporation. The agreement expires in 2013.-0-
He said representatives of Turkey and Azerbaijan renewed their demand that Armenian nuclear power plant be shut down during a NATO seminar on the role of parliaments in arms control in Geneva March 31-April 1.
Hrayr Karapetian said the blockade of Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijani failed and now they are trying to make the international community place pressure on Armenia and force it to close its nuclear power plant. According to him, that would result in heavy economic consequences. Hrayr Karapetian said he diffused the concerns of other participants of the seminar citing numerous conclusions by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Metsamor plant is now reliable enough to withstand a powerful earthquake similar to the 1988 calamity.
‘We are faced by a new reality. Never before Turkey and Azerbaijan have coordinated their anti-Armenian efforts as they do now. We need to close our ranks to be able to respond,’ he said.
The Metsamor plant is located some 30 kilometers west of Yerevan. It was built in the 1970s but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. One of its two VVER 440-V230 light-water reactors was reactivated in 1995. Armenian authorities said they will build a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging Metsamor plant.
The new plant is supposed to operate at twice the capacity of the Soviet-constructed facility. Metsamor currently generates some 40 percent of Armenia's electricity. But the government has yet to attract funding for the project that was estimated by a U.S.-funded feasibility study to cost at as much as $5 billion. Under a 2003 agreement Armenian nuclear power plant's financial flows are managed by Russian Inter RAO UES, owned by Russian state-run Rosatom corporation. The agreement expires in 2013.-0-
