Turkey’s third nuclear plant to be built in Thrace: Energy minister

ANKARA

Akkuyu Nuclear Plant in southern Turkey is scheduled to be in operation in 2023

The Turkish government will likely build the country’s third nuclear energy plant in Thrace, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak has said.

“The first phase of the Akkuyu [nuclear plant] will be put into operation in 2023. The location of the third one is almost determined. It will most probably be the Thrace region because this region has a high rate of energy consumption but the production is not so much in this region,” he said during a live interview with private broadcaster CNN Türk on June 13.

“We will build special centers for boron [production] outside the organized industrial zones. We have determined the locations but I will not announce them now. Cooperation with the industry will be put into practice with these centers. We will take the most developed examples in terms of nuclear [energy]. The boron [production] and nuclear [plant] will be neighbors,” he said.

The construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Plant, in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, was kicked off by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on April 3.

Turkey had also signed a protocol with the Japanese government for the construction of a nuclear power plant in the province of Sinop on the Black Sea coast.