Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said that the outdated Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) poses a serious threat to Turkey. "The Armenian NPP is the most outdated in the world, and many organizations, including IAEA demand its closure. The plant is located 16km of the border with Turkey, it uses old technologies and can become an epicenter of catastrophe," Yildiz said, adding that Turkey will continue the campaign on the NPP closure.

Yildiz is not "entirely right" saying that the Armenian NPP is the oldest one in the world. The operating second energy unit of the Armenian NPP was launched on January 5, 1980. In 2006, the Armenian government stated that the exploitation term of the Armenian NPP will expire in 2016.

Here is the example of operating Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant, the third and fourth energy units of which were launched in 1971 and 1972. At the same time, its third and fourth energy units will be stopped in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The third energy unit of the operating Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia was launched on April 8, 1980, and is planned to be stopped in 2020.

However, the Turkish Energy Minister can say whatever he wants, unless his words are interference in domestic affairs of its neighbor, specifically, Armenia.

Turkey intends to construct a NPP by the technology, which was used for the Metsamor NPP construction, i.e. through Russia's assistance. Moreover, Turkey is going to construct its second NPP jointly with Japanese Toshiba and Tokyo Electric Company (Tepcom), which is the operator of Japanese Fukusima-1 NPP that failed after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. Meanwhile, the Armenian NPP withstood the 1988 disastrous earthquake and became the only re-launched NPP after closure in the world.