Valdai Club

On January 29, 2016, in Vienna the Valdai Discussion Club presented a report entitled "Prospects for Nuclear Power in the Middle East: Russia’s Interests".

Presenting the report before the audience of experts and journalists at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, Anton Khlopkov, Director of CENESS, pointed out that Russia`s approach in nuclear energy cooperation was different from other nuclear suppliers. Russia mostly provides nuclear security, nuclear safeguards, regulatory activity, less the other elements of nuclear infrastructure. The reactor technology will be used as part of the projects, which Russia is going to implement in the Middle East region. They are based on the so-called turn-key basis: Russia will supply the technology and build the nuclear power plant. Some local companies can be related to it, but not in the nuclear part of the project.

According to Khlopkov, Russia does not use reprocessed fuel to supply to third countries. There is no intention to supply MOX-fuel to Iran or to any other country in the region.

The US was trying to promote its own world-standards in nuclear energy sphere, but it didn`t work since neither Jordan nor Vietnam agreed to their conditions. The US insists on enrichment and reprocessing plans because they think they have an actual right for it. But the general approach is that less reprocessed uranium will lead to better situation across the globe. At the same time we should be more realistic at what can be requested from the so-called “newcomer nuclear countries”.

Russia is planning to assist China to build fast-research reactor. According to the media, Beijing is interested in the project, Khlopkov said. There is also a Russian project of a fast reactor for research purposes as an international research facility. Many countries demonstrate their interest in spite of the complex political situation.

Despite the current difficulties in the relations between Russia and Turkey, future cooperation between two countries in nuclear industry looks quite optimistic. For example, now there are about 300 Turkish students studying in different Russian universities who are going to be a part of Turkish nuclear energy industry in the upcoming future. But if there is no quick progress in the political relations, it will be very difficult to finish the project in Turkey within the time frame which was originally fixed.

In any case the partnership in non-political spheres can make the intergovernmental relationship more sustainable. Russian nuclear industry is very much interested in being active on the market, Khlopkov said.

Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club and Editor-in-Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs journal, said during the presentation, that in case of Russia-Turkey nuclear project the more bureaucratic and technical obstacles we have, the more time it takes to overcome minor technical issues. In this case we can avoid to say that the project wasn`t implemented because of political atmosphere. Hopefully, during the present painful process we can prolong the Russia-Turkey nuclear project until the political circumstances will change and allow it to go ahead.

Khaled Abdel-Rahman Shamaa, Egyptian Ambassador to Austria, said during the discussion, that terrorist attacks in Egypt reduced the amount of attention paid to the nuclear sector. As to nuclear energy, the Middle East is a prospective market for Russia. Financial problems are very important. If we see the cost of other energy projects (solar, wind stations), NPPs are cheaper in comparison with them.