LEFT Party: Akkuyu must not be commissioned

News Centre

The LEFT Party Ecology Working Group reacted to Akkuyu Nükleer AŞ Board Chair Anton Dedusenko declaring 2026 as the plant’s “year of commissioning”. In its statement, the group stressed that nuclear power is not a solution to Turkey’s energy crisis and that the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) means expensive electricity, high risk and external dependency. The group called for the plant not to be brought online and for the project to be abandoned.

The statement said, “The solution to the energy crisis is not nuclear power. Akkuyu NPP must not be brought online and this project must be abandoned before it is too late. Since the 1950s, nuclear power has been marketed with the promise of electricity ‘too cheap to meter’. But at the point we have reached today, it has become clear that nuclear power plants are an expensive, old, cumbersome technology that creates new areas of dependency. The claim that nuclear power is a ‘cheap, safe and effective solution’ does not reflect reality. Because nuclear power plants are not cheap, not safe and do not serve the public and society. The Akkuyu example shows this reality with full clarity. Akkuyu NPP means expensive electricity, external dependency, a long-term purchase guarantee for a foreign company, a high risk of a nuclear accident and an unsolved nuclear waste problem.”

IT WILL SHOW UP AS EXPENSIVE ELECTRICITY

In its assessment of the purchase guarantees applied at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, the LEFT Party Ecology Working Group said, “Fifty percent of the electricity to be produced at Akkuyu will be bought under a state guarantee for 15 years at a price of 12.35 US cents per kilowatt-hour. Yet the price currently formed in the electricity market is around 6–7 US cents per kilowatt-hour. This shows that the electricity to be bought from Akkuyu will be about twice the market price. Therefore there is no public benefit in Akkuyu. This project condemns Turkey to more expensive electricity and a deeper external dependency. Production has been planned not according to people’s needs but according to contracts that guarantee company profit. The cost of this will show up for the people of Turkey as expensive electricity.”

COULD TURN INTO A MAJOR DISASTER

The statement said, “Akkuyu is not a public investment that increases security of energy supply. It is a project that creates total dependency from fuel supply to operation, from maintenance to waste management,” and continued:

“The plant is owned and controlled by the Russian state company Rosatom. There is no technology transfer. The staff sent from Turkey for training were taught only operating and management processes and no knowledge or technology was transferred towards building and developing a plant. This project does not mean energy independence, it means handing over energy sovereignty. The claim that nuclear power plants are safe has been disproved many times historically. This production model has led to at least five major nuclear accidents and severe human and environmental disasters. According to scientific studies, the probability of a serious nuclear accident is around 1%. This is a high risk that exists in no other electricity generation technology. In Akkuyu’s case, this risk is even greater. In the event of a possible accident, evacuating Mersin poses serious problems. The region’s geography, limited evacuation routes, dense population and the fact that agriculture, tourism and living areas are intertwined could turn a possible accident into a major disaster not only for Mersin but for the entire Eastern Mediterranean basin. This risk cannot be brushed aside with talk of ‘low probability’.”

The LEFT Party Ecology Working Group also drew attention to the risks linked to seismicity in the region where Akkuyu NPP is located.

The statement said, “The Eastern Mediterranean basin where Akkuyu NPP is located lies in the interaction zone of the Anatolian, African and Arabian plates. The region is shaped by active fault systems and complex tectonic processes. The earthquakes that occurred on 6 February 2023 clearly showed that seismicity assessments must be reconsidered not only in directly affected regions but across Turkey as a whole. Scientific studies carried out after these earthquakes show that stress transfers in the Earth’s crust can also affect faults in distant areas and that even in regions defined as ‘low risk’, perceptions of seismic hazard must be reassessed. Scientific knowledge about the location, activity and potential of fault lines is updated day by day and existing fault maps and seismic hazard models change. In the face of this dynamic geological reality that contains uncertainty, it is scientifically impossible to declare high-risk facilities like nuclear power ‘definitely safe’ in terms of seismicity.”

ABANDON BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

The statement ended with these words:

“The nuclear waste problem is a threat passed on to future generations. Spent nuclear fuel has the potential to emit radiation for thousands of years. There is not a single facility in the world where this waste can be stored permanently and safely. Waste is kept in temporary pools and the problem is constantly postponed. In addition, when plants reach the end of their economic life, dismantling them is itself a major technical and environmental problem. Also, uranium resources are limited. Data shows that uranium production reached its peak in 2016. A significant portion of the uranium used today comes from secondary sources and dismantled nuclear weapons. This shows that nuclear power is unsustainable even in terms of its own raw material. While core countries are stepping back from nuclear power, imposing this old and risky technology on countries like Turkey is a new relationship of dependency. Akkuyu NPP must not be brought online. The nuclear power plant projects planned in Sinop and İğneada must be cancelled immediately. Nuclear power is not the solution to Turkey’s energy crisis. Energy policies must be rebuilt on a public, democratic and ecological basis. This path must be abandoned before it is too late.”

Note: This article is translated from the original article titled SOL Parti: Akkuyu devreye alınmamalıdır, published in BirGün newspaper on December 23, 2025.