PRAGUE -- Azerbaijan’s deputy minister for renewable energy has expressed surprise at the emergency weekend suspension of operations at a nuclear plant in neighboring Armenia and hinted at concerns over “certain technologies that Armenians are using currently.”
Deputy Minister Elnur Soltanov warned in the comments to RFE/RL on September 1 that “nuclear plants in the neighborhood” might not be up to world standards and “it’s not just Armenia that will suffer” in the event of an accident.
The comments follow the emergency shutdown and temporary disconnection from the grid of Caucasus neighbor Armenia’s only functioning nuclear reactor, at Metsamor, after a lightning strike late on August 30. The facility was put back online the next day.
SEE ALSO: Armenian Nuclear Plant Reconnected To Grid After Lightning Strike Shuts Down FacilitySoltanov was speaking to RFE/RL on the sidelines of the Globsec security conference in Prague early on September 1.
Approached as he left a panel discussion on navigating climate change and the upcoming UN climate conference, COP29, which his country is hosting in November, Soltanov was initially unclear what “crisis” he was being asked about.
Informed that neighboring "Armenia's only nuclear power plant suffered a safety-related shutdown" about 36 hours earlier, he said, “Really? I have no idea. Oh my God.”
Soltanov continued to discuss the COP29 cooperation including “mutual support” that resulted in the lifting of Armenia’s veto on Baku hosting the event.
Then he argued the importance of nuclear technology in the climate fight as “sine qua non” to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
“But it has to be secure. It has to be safe. It should be answering the global standards,” Soltanov said.
“Because we know what happened in certain technologies that Armenians are using currently. So in that sense, yes. Anything that is constructively contributing to the process, pushing the situation to the world standards, which we believe that may not be the case with the nuclear plants in the neighborhoods, would be very great.”
“Because…it's not just Armenia that will suffer, right?” Soltanov said. “Everybody will suffer, and the consequences could be dire for everybody.”
Armenia’s only nuclear power plant is located 36 kilometers from the capital, Yerevan, and is less than 100 kilometers from Azerbaijani territory.
The plant’s initial Soviet-era construction with VVER-440 plant technology with no secondary containment building and with technology designed to withstand quakes of limited magnitude was controversial in a region regarded as heavily earthquake-prone.
Both of Metsamor’s reactors were closed in the late 1990s but Armenia reopened one of them in 1995 as energy demand grew.
SEE ALSO: As Peace Negotiations Advance, Armenia And Azerbaijan Are Going It AloneLongtime bitter foes Armenia and Azerbaijan are currently locked in tough discussions around a possible peace treaty following Azerbaijan’s decisive operation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas controlled for decades by Yerevan-backed ethnic Armenians.
Soltanov has been deputy energy minister since 2018 responsible for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
He was also appointed chief executive officer for the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP29, which Baku will host in mid-November.