Turkish President Abdullah Gul has approved a bill setting the legal framework for the country's first nuclear power plants, his office said in a written statement Tuesday.
The legislation, which had been vetoed by Gul's predecessor Ahmet Necdet Sezer in May, authorises the energy ministry to run and finalise tenders for the construction of nuclear power plants and decide on their capacity and location.
It provides for public institutions to build the plants if there is no interest from the private sector.
The government has said it plans to build three nuclear plants with a total capacity of about 5,000 megawatts to become operational in 2012 in a bid to prevent a possible energy shortage and reduce dependence on foreign energy supplies.
But the plan and the possible location of one of the reactors — Sinop, a Black Sea coast city 435 kilometers (270 miles) northeast of Ankara — triggered protests from residents and environmentalists.
Turkey abandoned earlier plans to build a nuclear plant in July 2000 amid financial difficulties and protests from environmentalists in Turkey and neighbouring Greece and Cyprus.
Opponents argued that the proposed site — Akkuyu, on the Mediterranean coast — was only 25 kilometres (15 miles) from a seismic fault line.
