Linas Linkevičius: Belarus’s Attitude Towards Belarusian NPP Derogates Importance Of International Conventions
- 28.02.2017, 18:28
- 33,588
According to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Belarus manipulates with facts.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius says that Belarus’s attitude to the Belarusian NPP, which is currently under construction in Astravets, derogates the importance of international conventions in resolving disagreements over a possible negative impact of the station on the environment, afn.by writes.
“The Espoo Convention and the Aarhus Convention remain very important tools that help to uncover the problems of the Belarusian NPP in the fields of environmental protection and nuclear safety before the international community,” — the Minister, who met with the Executive Secretary of the UN European Economic Commission Christian Friis Bach in Geneva on Monday, said for the press-release.
L. Linkevičius stressed that Belarus adheres to the formalist attitude towards compliance of the conventions and avoids implementation of the recommendations of the meetings between the two countries. The Minister stressed his disappointment that Belarus actively avoids a constructive dialogue on the details of the project in Astravets and manipulates with facts.
The head of the UN European Economic Commission underlined that transparency and dialogue were some of the main elements of the Espoo Convention and the Aarhus Convention, according to the press-release of the Foreign Ministry.
The 6th meeting of the countries - members of the Espoo Convention in June 2014 recommended that Belarus should invite the mission of SEED (Site and External Events Design) of the IAEA, so that it would assess the suitability of the Astravets ground for the nuclear power plant construction. However, the SEED mission held in January this year did not assess the possible researches of the grounds, the criteria for their selection and their suitability for the construction of nuclear power plants, because Belarus did not ask to conduct this part of the mission.
