South Korea is walking away from negotiations to build a
nuclear power plant in Turkey after the two countries failed to reach an agreement last month mostly
due to differences over electricity prices, a South Korean official said
Tuesday.
"As we have already presented the best offer we could to Turkey,
there will be no concession in order to narrow the gap" an official with
the Ministry of Knowledge Economy who took part in the negotiations with Turkey
told Dow Jones Newswires. "We still believe electricity charges should be
set high enough to recover investments in the project, but Turkey
didn't buy the idea."
The two governments suspended talks in November after failing to find agree on
electricity prices among other issues during two months of negotiations, the
official said, without elaborating.
Turkey's
ambassador to Seoul Erdogan Iscan said Monday that the two sides failed to iron
out key differences and the plan offered by South
Korea didn't satisfy Turkey's
expectations.
Turkey
hasn't closed the "Korean file" on the bid to build the reactor in Sinop, Turkey,
on the Black Sea coast, though it has started formal negotiations with Japan, the
ambassador said. If Seoul comes up with an
improved offer, Ankara
will consider it alongside the Japanese proposal, he said.
South Korea,
which operates 20 nuclear power plants that generate 30% of the country's
annual electricity, aims to export its expertise as a new growth engine for the
economy.
In December 2009, a
South Korea-led consortium inked a $20.4 billion deal to build four reactors in
the United Arab Emirates,
its first-ever overseas reactor contract.
"The country aims to win orders from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America," another ministry official said
Tuesday.