ANKARA: Ankara has temporarily suspended talks with Japan on building a nuclear plant in northern Turkey after Japan's nuclear disaster, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Sunday.
"The negotiations were of course affected by the tsunami," the Anatolia news agency quoted Yildiz as saying, in reference to the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast coast and sparked a nuclear emergency.
Yildiz said Japan had asked for the talks to be suspended as it dealt with the nuclear crisis at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 plant.
He said he believed negotiations could resume in June.
Turkey which is also earthquake prone announced last month it was pressing ahead with plans to build its first nuclear plant despite concerns raised by the disaster in Japan.
The Turkish government plans to build three nuclear power plants within five years.
It reached an agreement with Russia in May 2010 to build Turkey's first nuclear plant in Akkuyu in Mersin province in the south, angering environmentalists who warn of seismic hazards in the region.
In December, Turkey and Japan also signed a memorandum on civil nuclear cooperation, a step towards a possible $20-billion (15.4-billion euro) deal for Japanese companies to build a nuclear plant at Sinop, on Turkey's Black Sea coast.
The talks with Japan had initially been due to be completed by the end of March.
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