Pashinyan says talks with five countries continue over new nuclear power plant

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that negotiations with several countries are continuing over the planned construction of a new nuclear power plant in Armenia to replace the aging Metsamor facility.

“We have a nuclear power plant [Metsamor] that was built during the Soviet era, and the operating life of that nuclear power plant is nearing its end,” Pashinyan said at a panel discussion at the 2026 Concordia Annual Summit in New York City. “We are currently making a decision on the next nuclear power plant. In this regard, we are negotiating with various partners—the United States, Russia, France, China, and South Korea—and are seeking the best offer to launch the construction of a new nuclear power plant,” Pashinyan said.

Continuing on the topic of the energy sector, the Prime Minister added that with the introduction of new technologies, Armenia has a good opportunity to become energy self-sufficient.

“Since we have considerable solar resources and solar generation capacities that are developing rapidly, the most important issue for us now is to develop storage capacity. We now need large-scale energy storage capacity, and we are working in that direction,” the Prime Minister said.

Armenia has already announced that it is working to extend the operating life of the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant until 2036, while steps will be taken to build a new nuclear power plant in the meantime. It has already been decided that the new nuclear power plant will be modular.