Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia’s Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant poses a serious threat not only for this country, but also the whole region and beyond.

Azerbaijani’ Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu made the remark while talking to the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets on June 7.

Reminding that the world had recently marked the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Bulbuloglu noted that the Metsamor NPP has the reactor similar to the one the Chernobyl NPP had.

“Furthermore, it is located in a zone of a high seismic risk. Due to this, following the destructive Spitak earthquake of 1989 in Armenia, the Soviet authorities planned to suspend the work of Metsamor NPP. However, in 1995, the government of Armenia initiated the resumption of the second unit of the NPP,” the envoy said.

The ambassador, pointing to obvious risks, voiced surprise how calmly the neighboring countries react to this danger.

“If it explodes, it will be a major disaster. First of all, Armenia itself will suffer; next -- Georgia, Iran, Turkey, and of course, Azerbaijan,” Bulbuloghlu said, calling on the international community and Russia to take effective measures to assist in preventing rising threats.

Metsamor NPP began to operate in 1976. The license for the exploitation of the station will expire on September 1, 2016. Nevertheless, the Armenian government has made the decision to prolong the date of exploitation of the plant for 10 more years.

Experts are sure that in case of explosion at Metsamor the region will suffer devastating consequences for decades, perhaps centuries. This will not affect only those in the Caucasus but also can be a disaster for Europe and the Middle East.

Bulbuloglu further voiced his concern over the frequent statements of Armenian officials that their country has a “dirty bomb”, and irresponsible statements and threats by some military servicemen and MPs of Armenia, including the former Prime Minister.

“They claim about being able to create nuclear weapons or so-called “dirty bomb”, the manufacture of which requires the nuclear waste. I think there is no special need to prove that these experiments also relate to the Metsamor NPP,” he said adding that the NPP has already exhausted its activity as the economic mean and is used by Armenia as a radioactive weapon.

Metsamor accumulated financial liabilities of 9-9.5 billion drams ($23.3 million), but the amount rapidly increased in the past few years as a result of the ineffective management of foreign loans and credits. So, Armenia's arguments that the Metsamor NPP’s activity has an economic component and is aimed at power generation are nothing more than twaddle.

Radioactive waste is used to create chemical weapons. Therefore, Armenia will never agree to close the NPP, even if the world community requires this, the Azerbaijani National Nuclear Research Center announced earlier.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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