EU member states will discuss nuclear safety issues in Riga in June. At the upcoming meeting Latvia is expected to head the group on the proliferation of nuclear materials.
The Latvian side invited Belarus to participate in the event.
“We have an invitation for Belarus, personally for the president. The date as yet unfixed. But we believe that [having] a dialogue at all levels is vital,” Andrejs Pildegovics, the State Secretary of Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told tut.by.
On Thursday, the Belarusian leader said that the nuclear power plant which is currently being built in Astravets could become a ‘joint project’.
“This power plant is Belarusian. We are moving towards globalization, borders are increasingly eroding. The time will come when this will be a shared asset of Belarus and Latvia,” Alyaksandr Lukashenka said during a meeting with the Prime Minister of Latvia Maris Kucinskis.
He also thanked the Latvian side for its lack of criticism in connection with the construction of the would-be nuclear power plant.
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The Astravets NPP first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2019, the second one – in 2020. The construction of two nuclear reactors is provided in the agreement reached by Belarus and Russia, the reactors being supplied by Atomstroyexport, Russia.
Lithuania has repeatedly criticized the construction of the nuclear power plant 50 kilometers from Vilnius and encouraged the rest of the countries of the United Europe to not buy electricity from the future NPP.
Our neighbour is not only concerned about the proximity of the station to Vilnius, but also with a number of emergencies during the NPP construction. Among the emergencies are a reactor vessel accident, when it fell during the transportation, the collapse of the concrete structure at the site between the reactors. Our channel was the first to report on the incident. Before the official request of the Lithuanian side, representatives of the Belarusian NPP denied this information.
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