Armenia and Turkey: Can Nuclear Power Become a Force that Binds Two Enemies?

As Turkey and Armenia inch closer to some potential form of reconciliation, Armenian attention is increasingly focusing on whether or not Turkey will opt to participate in the construction of a new Armenian nuclear power plant.

A February 21 statement by Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian that Yerevan is "open for dialogue" about Turkish participation in the project has sparked often heated debate in Armenia. Despite the public expression of concern, Armenia's minister of energy and natural resources, Armen Movsisian, reaffirmed at a March 20 news briefing that the government would be open to considering Turkish participation in the project. "Any state can take part in the construction of the nuclear power plant, including Turkey," Movsisian said.

The diplomatic trial balloon has not yet met with an official response from Ankara. The results of the March 29 municipal elections in Turkey, in which the governing AKP Party experienced a significant decline in voter support, may make it more politically problematic for Ankara to press ahead with a rapprochement with Armenia, some Turkish experts say. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Other Turkish observers believe that the idea indicates that the recent thaw in Turkish-Armenian relations is here to stay. Trade between the two countries encourages that point of view; by November 2008, Armenia's trade turnover with Turkey reached $251.2 million, a far cry from the $953.3 million in trade with Russia, but higher than trade with neighboring Georgia, according to the National Statistics Service.

Even so, the reaction in Yerevan to the idea of a Turkish-built nuclear power plant remains chilly. "Obviously, it is a political offer," commented Ruben Safrastian, director the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. "It's a political gesture, not a good one, which I think will not have any further development, or come true."

Without a nuclear power plant of its own, Turkey, Safrastian argues, "lacks the resources" to take part in the project.

Bids for construction of the new power plant will start on April 1. Work on the project, overseen by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, is slated to begin by 2010, six years before the existing 33-year-old Metsamor nuclear power plant is slated to shut down. The completed power station will be able to generate up to 1,200 megawatts of electricity, at least double Metsamor's output. Experts estimate the project could cost upwards of $7.2 billion.

But with critical policy issues with Turkey still left unresolved, the proposal for Turkish participation in the power plant project has sparked criticism from many, including government coalition members.

Members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a nationalist member of Armenia's ruling coalition, termed "doubtful and unacceptable" the prospect of Turkish involvement in the power station project.

"Turkey's participation in the construction of the nuclear power plant is a threat to national security," stated Kiro Manoian, head of the party's office for political affairs. "I can't really understand the way those kinds of statements are made. It is a serious national security problem."

Ara Nranian, a parliamentarian from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, listed three unresolved issues with Turkey that stand in the way of close cooperation: Turkey's efforts to block international recognition of the Ottoman Empire's 1915 slaughter of ethnic Armenians as Genocide; the closure of its borders with Armenia in 1993, and the country's active support for Azerbaijan in its Nagorno-Karabakh dispute with Armenia.

"When one makes a political gesture like that, it means you do not have problems with the other side. But that's not the case. Steps should not be unilateral," Nranian commented. "If the step was meant as a diplomatic move, then it was a poor one. I want to believe the step was made without knowing [what they were doing]."

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the ministry had no comments to make about the issue. Ruling Republican Party of Armenia spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov, however, asserts that every single step was "calculated."

"Why can't there be cooperation in the energy sphere, if we talk about establishing relations without preconditions?" Sharmazanov said. "It's not an ordinary step; it's a question of energy security. I don't think state officials think about security matters less than their critics."

In his February 21 comments, Prime Minister Sarkisian stated that the new power plant will play a stabilizing role in the region. "We can be a serious exporter of energy and clearly our neighbor countries are interested in this area," Sarkisian elaborated in a March 14 interview with the daily newspaper Aravot.