Konstantin Zatulin, Director of CIS Institute, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Chairman of Committee for CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots:

 — Only large-scale economic cooperation is possible in the field of the nuclear power industry

On July 29 in Erevan the Armenian government meeting was held which approved conclusion of the agreement with the Russian government “On Cooperation in Construction of New Nuclear Power Units in the territory of Armenia”.

Konstantin Zatulin, Director of CIS Institute, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Chairman of Committee for CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots:

I consider the Armenian government decision to be quite logic and common-sense. We know that during the years of perestroika, after the Chernobyl disaster a decision of temporary shutdown of Metsamor NPP was adopted that caused severe crisis in power supply. This crisis affected utterly every Armenian. I visited Erevan in those days and remember the inhabitants of the capital heat their houses using self-made heaters. And then the Armenians requested for the Russian assistance. I occupied the position of Chairman of the Committee for CIS Affairs and worked at lot at ratification by the State Duma of credit arrangement for the Armenian party.

I’d call cooperation between Rosatom and Armenia a positive example of integration. Now Rosatom is actively exploring every avenue to promote the Russian nuclear technologies in other countries. In this respect I can’t but mention the beginning close cooperation with Ukraine in this field.

Only large-scale economic cooperation is possible in the field of the nuclear power industry, and I’d say the following thing: to make economic cooperation beneficial sometimes it’s necessary to make great political efforts.

Today our nuclear power industry arouses interest of many countries which are interested in development of peaceful atom potential. And it’s not a wonder that we often face competition on the part of the world players at this market, and this competition is sometimes far from being fair.

In the same way I regard reaction of some states to construction of Busher NPP in Iran. The West will never be pleased with our achievements. But I’m glad that our position in CIS remains strong and Russia is preferred to the western countries in cooperation for major projects implementation.