Brussels, 11/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 8 April, the European Commission confirmed its plans to open dialogue with Turkey to convince Ankara to take part in the stress test exercise for nuclear power stations and all future installations in the EU and its neighbour countries against a whole range of threats, such as those which caused the nuclear accident underway at the Fukushima Daichi power station since the natural disaster which hit Japan on 11 March. Although Turkey does not currently have a nuclear reactor, it is planning to build installations, one of which potentially just 5 km from its border with Bulgaria. Confirming his country's commitment to build three power stations, the Turkish energy minister, Taner Yildiz, denied that one of these installations would certainly be built on the coast of the Black Sea, near the Bulgarian border. By the end of the year, the EU is planning to subject the 143 nuclear reactors on its soil to stress tests, and would like to extend them to the six neighbour countries which currently use nuclear power (Armenia, Russia, Switzerland Ukraine) or which are planning to (Belarus and Turkey). “There is no formal obligation, but we would like to take account of the concerns of certain member states regarding the nuclear plans of our neighbour countries. This is why we would like to invite Turkey and other neighbouring third countries also to carry out the stress tests”, which will apply both to installations already up and running and those being built, Marlene Holzner, the spokesperson to Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, explained on Friday. It is believed that Brussels has already received positive signals from Russia. (E.H./transl.fl)