Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 10 /Trend, I.Islabalayeva/
Azerbaijan may give consent for construction of a new nuclear reactor in Armenia, director of the Radiation Problems Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) Adil Garibov told Trend on Monday.
According to him, to get Azerbaijan's consent for construction of the reactor, Armenia must necessarily develop and submit to Azerbaijan the environmental impact assessment of the reactor's operation.
At the same time, Armenia has to inform the Azerbaijani side of all details of the reactor's operation: from where it will take water for reactor's operation, how it will purify water, at what temperature the water will drain back into the river, how safety will be ensured. The Armenian side will have to answer to some other questions of Azerbaijan.
According to Garibov, before building a new reactor, it is necessary to prepare environmental impact assessment and submit to countries of region a report on this issue.
The results of environmental impact assessment of the reactor may be not to be reported to Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan may not to accept them, said Garibov. According to him, Armenia may explain its refusal to submit assessment to Azerbaijan with that it is in condition of war the country.
Azerbaijan also can not to accept the results of assessment if the Armenian side does not follow certain rules for the organization of reactor.
"At the annual meeting of the IAEA, ANAS President Mahmud Kerimov said that Armenia is weak from an economic point of view, it may not to be able to contain the reactor with a capacity of 1,000 MW. So, this issue should be on the focus of international attention," said Garibov.
Armenia plans to build a new nuclear power plant more powerful than Metsamor NPP. Presumably, the project will cost $1 billion.
The service period of Metsamor NPP expired in 2010. However, Armenia and IAEA experts have agreed to continue operating the plant until 2016.