Turkey cancels nuclear power plant tender

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey on Friday scrapped a 2008 tender won by a Russian-led consortium to build the country's first nuclear power plant - a process that had been under threat of being invalidated by a court decision.



In a brief statement, the state-run electricity wholesaler TETAS said its board of directors decided "unanimously" to cancel the tender, citing an article in the bid specification that gave it the authority to scrap the process without any liability.



A consortium led by Atomstroyexport, Russia's state nuclear giant, had been the only bidder in the tender to build four nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 4,800-megawatts at Akkuyu, in the Mediterranean province of Mersin.



TETAS's decision comes ten days after a top administrative court suspended parts of the regulation governing the tender before moving on to review a demand by a civil society of engineers to cancel the process, AFP reported.