Jewell Jessica, Ates Seyithan Ahmed

Turkey is currently in the middle of its sixth attempt over the last 60 years to introduce nuclear power. This paper analyzes Turkey’s past and present motivation, capacity and strategies to identify the factors which influence deployment of nuclear power and draw lessons for other nuclear newcomer countries. While existing literature points to a correlation between nuclear power, strong state involvement, centralized energy planning and the rhetoric linking energy to national prestige and security, these factors are not sufficient for a successful nuclear program. The autocratic rule and nuclear weapons aspirations can undermine rather than support the development of civilian nuclear power. Although Ankara intends to build the third nuclear power plant with own resources this seems unlikely based on the South Korean and Japanese experience, both of which needed much more time and effort to localize the industry.