DEFENSE MINISTER DEFENDS DEAL WITH GAZPROM

Armenpress
Apr 11 2006

YEREVAN, APRIL 11, ARMENPRESS: Defense minister Serzh Sarkisian
joined today the country’s leadership to defend the government’s
decision to sell the incomplete fifth unit of the Hrazdan power plant
to Russia’s Gazprom in return for temporarily reducing the price of
Russian natural gas.

Talking to reporters Sarkisian said the government could not invest
$180 million to complete the construction of the fifth unit. “The
fifth unit of the plant can be compared with a house whose basement
was built only,’ Sarkisian said. The defense minister shrugged off
critics of the government who accuse it of selling out the country’s
major assets to a foreign country.

He argued that if Armenia had found money to make the unit operational
it would have felt the returns only in 2017. He said no one could
predict what the price of natural gas would be in a decade.