Azerbaijan has called on the UN Security Council to suspend the operation of Armenia’s nuclear power plant in Metsamor, Azerbaijan’s UN envoy Agshin Mekhdiyev said on Monday.
He said the NPP jeopardizes regional security. It is past its service life and international observers have described it as the most unreliable of the six Soviet nuclear reactors in the FSU and Eastern Europe.
Although the NPP is located in an earthquake prone area, it does not have sufficient water supplies to cool the reactor in case of accident, the envoy said.
The station currently meets about 40 percent of Armenia’s electricity need.
The NPP’s operating license expires in September 2016, but on Thursday the Armenian government decided to extend the station’s operation until 2020.
Armenia’s UN ambassador Karen Nazaryan dismissed Azerbaijan’s initiative as anti-Armenian propaganda.
