‘Don’t let Mersin become Chernobyl’: Turkish and Greek Cypriots unite against Russian nuclear power plant

Past the tangles of barbed wire, crumbling bullet-pocked buildings, and signs warning “no photography, no litter” within the United Nations-administered buffer zone that divides the Cypriot capital Nicosia, there is a clearing. It’s along Markou Drakou Street, past the Ledras Palace hotel, just before the border control for the self-declared Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. The UN barracks (presumably filled with bored peacekeepers) is on one side of the street, then further up on the other side, right in the middle of the no-man’s land, there is a brightly painted two-storey building. It’s called the Home for Cooperation.

On its Facebook page, the facility describes itself as “a shared space for inter-communal cooperation and dialogue”. It was established 15 years ago, just after the opening up of the border between the two sides of Cyprus. Its centrepiece is a cafe that sells beer, iced coffee and some snacks. There are classrooms and conference centres, on the ground floor and upstairs, that offer both Turkish and Greek language classes, African drumming workshops, and “street food” nights.

Before coronavirus restrictions, I travelled to the Republic of Cyprus and walked from a hotel at the centre of Nicosia to the Home for Cooperation for a meeting. As I sat inside drinking an iced coffee, a group of 20-somethings with yoga mats chatted amicably over chai. Outside, a pair of tweens on mountain bikes pedalled past.

I was there to meet activists and politicians from both sides of the island. They had overcome years of hostility between the two people and their geopolitical patrons to unite over a common threat that is becoming increasingly pressing: the Russian-built nuclear power reactor which is soon to be constructed in the Turkish coastal town of Akkuyu, just across the sea.

The armed conflict that turned Cyprus into a divided island and Nicosia the world’s last divided city came to a tentative halt 46 years, with the two sides remaining in a state of hostility despite herculean diplomatic efforts at mediation over the years. Still, over the decades since the armed conflict that solidified the island’s divisions, relations between the two communities have improved markedly.

“We understand each other much better than before,” Kyriakos Tsimillis, a 70-year-old chemist and founder of the Cyprus Green Party, explained to me. “This is Cyprus. This is our common island. We can work together. We can struggle together.”

As the activists trickle in for our meeting, they are warm and friendly with each other, exchanging hugs and kisses. They’ve known each other for years; catching up on personal lives before shifting to speak amicably about politics, they sometimes finish each other’s sentences.

“All of us are afraid of an accident, even a small one, that could devastate nearby marine life,” says Murat Kanatli, a 47-year-old Turkish Cypriot activist and local politician.

“People are aware of this threat, but they are not as active as they could be, or should be,” adds Melina Menelaou, a 52-year-old Greek Cypriot biologist.

The Cypriot movement against the nuclear power plant in Akkuyu stretches back decades, and offers a ray of hope in a world increasingly divided along nationalistic lines – especially in the eastern Mediterranean, where Greeks and Turks have upped their tensions in competition over energy resources and hegemony over the waterways of the Aegean.

Though all are Nato members, Turkey has been pitted against Greece and Cyprus in a dispute that is in part over conflicting claims on energy resources that lie beneath the ocean floor. Nato chiefs have been attempting to broker some kind of agreement.

The Cypriot anti-nuclear movement began in the late 1990s, when plans were first sketched out for a possible atomic facility in Akkuyu. Back then, a Canadian company was considering building the power plant. In January of 1998, a group of Greek Cypriot environmental protesters gathered in Nicosia. They held up a banner that said “No to nukes. No to Akkuyu”. To their surprise and delight, the response from the Turkish-controlled side was cheers. A few months later, the group held a “die-in” in central Nicosia, coordinating with anti-nuclear activists in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Thus, “No Nuclear,” a movement that transcended the divisions of the island and the hostility between ethnic Turks and Greeks, was born.

At first, activists from both sides of the island met quietly, part of a budding effort at cooperation involving left-leaning political parties and trade unions. There were disagreements and tensions; Turkish Cypriots accused Greek Cypriots of attempting to frame every issue as rooted in the Turkish invasion. Greek Cypriots accused Turkish Cypriots of providing cover for continued colonisation of the island by mainland Turks who had no roots in Cyprus, an island with a storied history that was under British control from 1914 to 1960.

Nevertheless, the two sides worked together. Meetings were conducted in English, to keep things neutral. Over the years, some Turkish Cypriots learned Greek while Greek Cypriots learned Turkish. “You can’t really communicate with ordinary people in English,” says Tsimillis, who spent three years studying Turkish.

They organised meetings with foreign diplomats, lobbying them to oppose the nuclear plant, and pressured potential backers to come up with more details about the potential impact of a disaster at the site.

They raised concerns about safety. Turkey is one of the most seismically unsettled regions of the world, with regular earthquakes. Their fears were exacerbated in 2010, when Russia’s Rosatom signed a deal to build the nuclear power plant.

“We do have a problem that it’s Russian,” says Menelaou.

The legacy of Chernobyl continues to haunt Russian reactors, even as some nuclear scientists insist the flawed design of the reactor in Ukraine led to the disaster, and that the water-cooled modern reactors that are being used to produce electricity across the world are perfectly built with considerations for possible earthquakes and typhoons.

But a year after Rosatom signed off to build the plant in Akkuyu, both a typhoon and earthquake struck the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, causing one of the worst atomic disasters in history. The three reactors at the facility that were in operation all melted down, while one reactor underwent several hydrogen gas explosions.

“And you can’t say that Japanese are bad with technology,” says Menelaou.

Clean-up efforts at Fukushima are to take decades. All those long-held theories about safer atomic energy came to naught, as a chill came over the nuclear industry worldwide.

But the four-reactor 4,800 megawatt Rosatom project went forward, with Russia winning advantages that allow it to use the seaside facility as a major port for itself. Construction began in 2018, with the first reactor set to power up in 2023.

A foundation for reactor number two was laid in June. Turkish officials say that the construction itself will eventually employ at least 15,000 people. But under the provisions of the deal, Russia can employ as many of its own nationals for the operation of the power plant as it wants.

Turkey insists the project is among the safest there is. “This is not the first or last nuclear power plant under construction in the world,” a senior energy ministry official said in response to a query by The Independent.

Dozens of reactors are currently under construction in India, China, Europe and the United States – some of them built by Rosatom. Iran already has a reactor operating in Bushehr on the Persian Gulf; the United Arab Emirates connected its first atom plant to its electricity grid in August; and nuclear power plants are being planned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Bulgaria, Armenia and Israel all have nuclear reactors.

The Turkish official said that Akkuyu has been assessed for “seismic and many other safety issues” by independent regulatory agencies. “We cannot accept that we are giving up any safety measures,” he said. “We are following all the international standards.”

But many critics have questioned the project’s safety. The Union of Chamber of Turkish Engineers and Architects last year claimed that cracks had been discovered at the site of the power plant. “We found that this was related to a terrifying lack of inspection,” Erkan Demir of the union was quoted as saying in a Turkish newspaper. “The site is being operated with the mentality of contractors instead of engineers.”

Turkish officials counter that the activists opposing the project for environmental reasons are contradicting themselves. “If we’d like to fight climate change, nuclear should be in our energy mix because, in the sense of carbon emissions, it’s a pretty clean source of energy,” said a senior Turkish energy official.

Russian officials have also defended the project, alleging a conspiracy by “pro-European and pro-western” voices to malign Akkuyu. “They don’t want to see the success of a Russian infrastructure mega-project in Turkey and the prospects it brings for long-term cooperation,” Timur Akhmetov of the Russian International Affairs Council was quoted as saying.

Last year, HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl quickly became one of the most watched television shows on the planet, giving a mesmerising and horrific reminder of the worst nuclear accident in history, one that continues to haunt the world.

One Turkish opposition lawmaker from the city of Mersin, 75 miles away from Akkuyu created a mock-up of the ad for the HBO series, replacing the name of Chernobyl with that of his city. “In a few years will HBO release a TV series on a nuclear disaster that may occur at Mersin Akkuyu?” Alpay Antmen asked. “Don’t let Mersin become Chernobyl.”

For Cypriots, the Chernobyl incident resonates in particular. Chernobyl was built on the outer fringes of the Soviet Union, in Ukraine near the border with Belarus, which bore much of the impact of the disaster. Cypriots know full well that a nuclear accident at Akkuyu would hurt them worst. The third largest city of northern Cyprus, called Girne or Kyranios, lies 55 miles across the Mediterranean from Akkuyu, nearer than Mersin.

Meanwhile, the nearest big Turkish city, Konya, lies on the other side of a mountain range 130 miles away from Akkuyu. “If there is an accident, the first affected area is us,” says Kanatli, the Turkish Cypriot politician.  Turkey has declined to sign the Espoo Convention, a treaty that would require it to consult with neighbours on any project related to nuclear power plant construction.

Meanwhile, the nearest big Turkish city, Konya, lies on the other side of a mountain range 130 miles away from Akkuyu. “If there is an accident, the first affected area is us,” says Kanatli, the Turkish Cypriot politician.  Turkey has declined to sign the Espoo Convention, a treaty that would require it to consult with neighbours on any project related to nuclear power plant construction.

“They said they would transfer the waste by air to Russia,” says Tsimillis. “This is unbelievably stupid.”

Last year the European parliament called on Ankara to halt construction, requesting that Turkey “involve, or at least consult, the governments of the neighbouring countries, such as Greece and Cyprus, in relation to any further developments in the Akkuyu venture”.

The power plant is moving forward regardless. Powerful geopolitical forces are propelling it. Russia and Turkey are strengthening energy ties. And there is something of a race to establish nuclear energy involving rivals in the Middle East. The UAE, which is butting heads with Turkey across the region and North Africa, launched what it described as the Arab world’s first nuclear power plant in August.

But the Cypriots are not relenting either. Using the Turkish Cypriots as a bridge, they are coordinating their opposition to Akkuyu with environmental activists in Mersin and other Turkish mainland cities.

The Cypriots have made it a point to speak out against nuclear reactors across the region, and have called for the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Mediterranean. Twice a year, people from both sides of the island gather to protest against Akkuyu together – once on the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, and once to commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima.

But not this year. Instead, because of coronavirus restrictions, political activists from both sides met online on 16 September in a session organised by the Slovak embassy in Cyprus. Items on the agenda included the climate emergency and the power plant at Akkuyu.

I reached out to the chemist Tsimillis just before that conference. He said he was disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to see his Turkish Cypriot compatriots in person – to shake their hands, give them warm Mediterranan hugs.

“Hopefully things will soon be better and we can meet in person again,” he says in a phone call over Viber, the messaging app preferred by the anti-nuclear activists. “When we meet in person, further exchanging views, we also promote the vision of working together, thus the vision of a unified society which we are looking for. We promote the idea that Cyprus is a unified ecosystem, and human beings are part of this ecosystem.”