Turkish court blocks nuclear plant project

A Turkish court has blocked a 2008 tender won by a Russian company to build the country's first nuclear power plant, a civil society group that challenged the tender in court said on Tuesday.

A consortium led by Atomstroyexport, the Russian state’s nuclear giant, was the only bidder in the tender to build and operate the plant. The Turkish government decided not to award the project, reported Agence France-Presse.

"The Council of State has suspended three articles in the regulations governing the tender process," the Union of Turkish Engineers' and Architects' Chambers, or TMMOB, said in a statement.

"With this decision, the nuclear power plant tender has legally ended. It has been rendered invalid," it stated.

There was no immediate response from the government to the court decision.

The tender process has been under fire since it emerged in September last year that only one consortium had bid for the project and offered an above-market price.

The consortium, including Russia's Inter Rao and Turkey's Park Teknik, later revised down its proposed price for supplying electricity, but Ankara said the new offer was also very high.

The project envisages the construction of four nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 4,800-megawatts at Akkuyu, in the Mediterranean province of Mersin.

The plan is fiercely opposed by environmentalists who argue that Akkuyu is close to a seismic faultline, pointing at a powerful earthquake that killed more than 140 people in the neighbouring province of Adana in 1998.