ANKARA (Yonhap) -- Korea and Turkey agreed to resume suspended negotiations later this month on a project to build a nuclear power plant in the Eurasian nation, an official said Monday.
Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed Sunday to revive the talks after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed strong hopes for Seoul's participation in the project to build an atomic power plant on Turkey's Black Sea coast.
On Monday, Seoul's knowledge economy minister, Hong Suk-woo, agreed with Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz to send a South Korean delegation to Turkey later this month for the first round of revived talks, senior presidential press secretary Choe Geum-nak said.
Under the project, Turkey plans to build a total of four nuclear reactors in the Black Sea port of Sinop, and hopes Korea will build two of them on the condition that Seoul finances the construction and then recovers the cost and takes profit from selling electricity from the plant.
In 2010, Korea and Turkey held intense negotiations on the project, but the talks were later suspended after the sides failed to resolve key differences, such as the location of the reactors, electricity prices and government payment guarantees, officials said.
Japan was then expected to win the project, but Turkey's talks with Japanese firms were halted after the deadly nuclear accident in Fukushima in March. During a summit with Lee on the sidelines of a G20 summit in France in November, Erdogan first asked to resume negotiations.
Officials said Turkey's calls for Korea's participation in the project suggest that Ankara is willing to make concessions on the sticking points. But no specific issues were discussed in Sunday's talks between Lee and Erdogan, officials said.
Korea is a global atomic energy leader that relies on nuclear plants for about 40 percent of its electricity needs. The country has also been trying to export nuclear power plants since Korean firms won a massive contract in late 2009 to build four atomic power plants in the United Arab Emirates.
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