Latvia’s MFA: We Support Lithuania’s Position On Belarusian NPP

However, Latvia appears not ready to impose embargo on the energy from the Astravets NPP so far.

The Latvian government supports the position of Lithuania, which thinks it is reasonable to apply the highest standards of security with regard to the Belarusian NPP under construction. However, Latvia doesn’t consider the laws which would limit purchasing of power produced at that station, Latvia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkevics says.

He has said in an interview to BNS (translated by delfi.lt) that he constantly raised security issues at the meetings with the representatives of Belarus and the IAEA , but he added at the same time that the Belarusian NPP construction became an internal issue of Lithuania which he had no intention to interfere in.

“We support Lithuania’s position and share its concern as for the ecological and security standards. I discussed this with the Belarusian Minister for Foreign Affairs and raised this issue at the meeting with the General Director of the IAEA. However, we stick to the position, according to which we should discuss it with the Belarusian side for as much as possible. We do not go as far as to consider any laws, but we think that the highest possible standards of security and ecology should be applied,” – the Minister has said in the Trakai district of Lithuania.

He has noted that the issue of synchronization of the electrical transmission lines of the Baltic States with the Western Europe should be handled by experts, not by politicians, as the prior experience showed that premature interference of politicians might disrupt realization of regional projects.