Turkish Parliament Approves Deal With Japan for Construction of Second NPP

The Turkish parliament has approved an agreement with Japan for the construction of the country's second nuclear power plant in the northern province of Sinop on the Black Sea coast, an official statement on Wednesday said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — An intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the power plant was signed in 2013 by then-Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who is currently serving as Turkey's president, and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe.

The agreement comes just two days after Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) called for a referendum over the power plant's construction. CHP Deputy Chairman Engin Altay warned that the reactor planned to be built in Sinop had no accreditation and had not been well tested.

Turkey's plans to build a nuclear plant in an active earthquake zone on the Black Sea coast faced much criticism following the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan in 2011.

Implementation of the Turkish second power plant project will be carried out by a Japanese-French consortium and is scheduled for completion by 2023, the year of the Turkish Republic's 100th anniversary.

The first Turkish power plant, a Russian designed project, is due to be built at the Akkuyu site in Turkey with construction due to start in April 2015. The plant will have four power units of 1200 megawatt (MW) each, producing a total of about 35 billion kilowatt-hours per year. The project's cost is estimated at about $20 billion.