Russia seals deal for Turkey's first nuclear power plant
ANKARA — Russia on Wednesday signed a 20-billion-dollar (15.8-billion-euro) deal to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant as President Dmitry Medvedev hailed expanding ties with the NATO member.
"This agreement opens a new page in our cooperation... Our talks today showed that Turkey and Russia are strategic partners not only in words but in deeds," Medvedev told a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The deal to build and operate the plant at Akkuyu, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, was one of some 20 agreements signed by the two countries which Medvedev said would generate about 25 billion dollars of investment.
"It really looks rather impressive," he said.
Erdogan said construction of the plant would begin after both parliaments ratify the accord, and take seven years to complete.
Russia has long looked to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant, but a Turkish court last year scrapped a tender won by a Russian-led consortium to build four reactors with a total capacity of 4,800-megawatts at Akkuyu.
Wednesday's deal "is a very big contract," Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, told reporters. "An approximate price of such a project is around 18-20 billion dollars."
Kiriyenko said Russia would own the plant -- the first Russian-owned plant outside the country -- holding "no less than a controlling stake".
Erdogan said he and Medvedev discussed projects to carry Russian gas and oil to world markets via Turkey, which has emerged as a major transit hub between East and West.
He cited Moscow's South Stream pipeline project to supply gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine, as well as Ankara's proposal for an oil pipeline from Turkey's Black Sea port of Samsun to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, which already serves as a terminal for conduits from Azerbaijan and Iraq.
"We are determined to take this step," he said of the Samsun-Ceyhan conduit, which, he added, would be completed with a joint refinery at Ceyhan.
The construction of the pipeline, which aims to ease tanker traffic in the congested Bosphorus Strait, would cost three billion dollars, Russian Deputy Prime Mininster Igor Sechin told reporters.
Last year, Turkey secured a Russian pledge to supply oil to the conduit in return for backing South Stream.
Ankara, which also backs the European Union's rival Nabucco pipeline, agreed to allow Russian exploration work for the project in its Black Sea waters.
As the two countries expressed a desire to triple trade volume to 100 billion dollars over the next five years, Medvedev said their national currencies -- the rouble and the lira -- should be used in bilateral trade.
"We need to think how to dramatically expand the use of national currencies," he told a business forum, reiterating that both economies were too dependent on global reserve currencies, primarily the US dollar.
The idea was floated in a confidential new foreign policy strategy prepared for Medvedev and published by Newsweek Russia this week.
The two countries also signed a deal mutually lifting visas for stays of up to 30 days, a major boost to investors and millions of Russians holidaying at Turkey's Mediterranean coast each year.
Despite sometimes shaky political ties, economic exchanges between the two countries have boomed since the fall of communism.
In 2009, their trade volume stood at 22.9 billion dollars, making Russia one of Turkey's top commercial partners.
Russia's military intervention in Georgia in 2008 briefly strained relations with Turkey, which has close ties with the former Soviet republic, its northeastern neighbour.
Russia is Turkey's main gas supplier, providing about 60 percent of the country's gas imports.
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The Russian and Turkish governments today signed an agreement that would lead to Russia building a US$20 billion nuclear power plant in Turkey, the country's first.

The plant will be built on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and construction will commence as soon as the deal is approved by both countries; the building process is expected to take around seven years. The reactor will also be owned by Russia, which will hold "no less than a controlling stake," according to , who is the head of , a Russian nuclear energy corporation.

The reactor to be built is the second proposed power plant in the same location; a separate proposal for a four-reactor complex built by a Russian-led consortium was rejected by a Turkish court last year.  Russia has attempted to build a nuclear power plant in Turkey, and the contract signed Wednesday "really looks rather impressive," according to  Dmitry Medvedev.

The contract for the reactor was one of 20 signed by the two countries today, expected to result in around US$25 billion of Russian investment in Turkey. Other major contracts signed include projects to transport Russian oil and natural gas through Turkey to ports on the Mediterranean Sea. One such project is a major pipeline between the Turkish ports of  on the Black Sea and  on the Mediterranean Sea, built in conjunction with an oil refinery in Ceyhan.

In a press conference, Russian President Medvedev said that the agreements signal "a new page in our cooperation...Our talks today showed that Turkey and Russia are strategic partners not only in words but in deeds."  Abdullah Gul said that the two countries "share a determination to increase the trade volume from a current US$38 billion to US$100 billion in five years."