Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed in a phone call to Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, that his country play a mediation role in the conflict involving the Zaporijia nuclear plant in Ukraine, according to information released by his office this week. Saturday (3).
“Erdogan indicated that Turkey can play a facilitating role, as it did in the grain deal,” the cabinet said.
The document, signed in July by Ukraine and Russia and with the UN and Turkey as intermediaries, allowed the export of millions of tons of grain blocked in Ukrainian Black Sea ports due to the war.
This issue should be further discussed between the two presidents at a meeting scheduled to take place on September 15 and 16, in Uzbekistan, according to the cabinet.
Last month, the Turkish president met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in Lviv, western Ukraine, and raised concerns about the plant’s integrity. “We don’t want another Chernobyl,” he said, referring to the accident at the Ukrainian nuclear plant in 1986. There is, however, no information that Erdogan has ever proposed mediation to Zelensky.
Kiev and Moscow have exchanged accusations in recent months over attacks on the largest nuclear plant in Europe, which was occupied in March by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) mission to assess the situation at the plant said this Thursday (1st) that the fighting in the region violated “the physical integrity” of the site and that it will be necessary to keep technicians from the agency for further investigation.
The plant lost connection with the Ukrainian power grid again on Saturday, according to the IAEA, which maintains a group of experts on site.
The installation is on the edge of the area occupied by the Russians in the homonymous region, which does not include its capital, also called by the same name. In recent weeks, fighting has intensified in the region, with both sides accusing the other of hitting the plant’s grounds.
In addition to the fear that a reactor or its cooling systems will be hit, there is danger all around, in the form of various radioactive waste dumps. If one of them is bombed, there is a risk of large-scale contamination.
