Workers protesting against unpaid wages on July 23 went on strike at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant (NPP) construction site in Turkey, Radio Azattyk reported on July 24.

Russia’s Rosatom is building the NPP, Turkey’s first, at the location on the Mediterranean coast. The project has been hit by severe delays. In May, bne IntelliNews reported how $7bn in project funding had failed to materialise.

The striking workers reportedly blocked a road as they mounted their protest. Local reports said Turkish police used water cannons to disperse the demonstrating employees.

Kazakh journalist Mikhail Kozachkov said on his Telegram channel that video recordings of the strike action and the violent dispersal of protesters were sent by a Kazakh employee working on the NPP project in Mersin province.

"People are blocking cars from passing through. They are breaking the cars of visitors. They are throwing stones and rebar [reinforcement steel]," a man filming one of the recordings is heard saying. 

RBC reported Rosatom as saying that the delay in paying wages was prompted by the blocking of funds caused by the actions of "unfriendly countries" competing with Russia in the nuclear industry.

The state nuclear corporation said that it was working with Turkey to find ways to continue financing the project.

The construction of Akkuyu NPP started in 2018. The megaproject has an estimated cost of $20bn thought due to contractual terms Turkey could be on the hook for as much as $35bn. The plant is to have four 4,800-MWe reactors.

The launch of the first reactor has been postponed several times. The latest comment on the matter from Turkey talked about having it in operation by the end of this year.

Some delays have been caused by Berlin’s refusal to provide Siemens with licences to supply the project with some key NPP components, amid the Western sanctions response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. In response, Rosatom said it would source the required parts from China.

The situation with Akkuyu NPP is increasingly embarrassing for big revenue earner Rosatom as it seeks to hugely expand its nuclear work abroad on the basis that it is more than capable of constructing nuclear plants whatever the situation with Ukraine-war related sanctions imposed on the Kremlin by the West. The delays are also an awkward matter for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who wanted the first reactor of the plant to be launched to coincide with the 2023 centennial of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

In April 2023, a couple of weeks ahead of Turkey’s presidential elections, Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin celebrated, via video link, an Akkuyu “inauguration” ceremony—subsequently there were multiple media reports, including in international press, saying that the NPP had been launched, whereas in reality, the only development was the arrival of a first shipment of nuclear fuel at the construction site.

Russia and Turkey signed the agreement for the NPP, designed to supply around 10% of Turkey’s electricity, in 2010. First concrete was poured for unit 1 in April 2018, for unit 2 in June 2020, for unit 3 in March 2021 and for unit 4 in July 2022.

Critics of the Akkuyu project have warned that the NPP is being built in an earthquake zone.

Rosatom is constructing the reactors in line with a build-own-operate model that is the first in the world in an NPP deal. Some 93% of project financing is coming from a Rosatom unit. Turkey has been calculated to have an overall payment obligation of $35bn for the plant, making it the largest single project payment obligation in Turkish history.