EurasiaNet, NY
July 28, 2006
ARMENIA DEEPENS TIES WITH EMBATTLED IRAN
Emil Danielyan 7/28/06
Armenia is deepening what it regards as a strategic relationship with
neighboring Iran despite mounting international concern over the
Iranian nuclear program and widespread speculation about potential US
military action against Tehran. The two countries’ governments have
agreed in particular to press ahead with the implementation of more
multimillion-dollar energy projects in addition to the ongoing
construction of a pipeline that will pump Iranian natural gas to
Armenia.
The agreements were announced during and after Armenian President
Robert Kocharian’s early July visit to Tehran, which officials said
gave a further boost to bilateral cooperation. Kocharian’s Iranian
counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and reaffirmed the Islamic
Republic’s commitment to maintaining close ties with Armenia. "The
Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes and supports the development of
ties with Armenia in various areas, particularly in energy as well as
transportation, sports, and tourism," Iranian media quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying after talks with Kocharian. "I hope the
Armenian president’s trip to Iran would serve as an important step
toward the development of all-out ties between the two countries."
Kocharian, for his part, reportedly welcomed "noticeable progress" in
the development of those ties and said they must be followed up by
"new steps." Some of those steps are presumably contained in several
agreements signed during his trip. The most important of them
envisages the construction of a third power transmission line that
will connect the Armenian and Iranian power grids. Work on the $90
million project is expected to start later this year and take up to
three years.
The 312-kilometer-long line is meant to allow for a substantial
increase in Armenian electricity supplies to Iran that officials say
will follow the completion of the gas pipeline slated for the end of
this year. Yerevan had borrowed $34 million from Tehran to finance
the construction of the first 40-kilometer Armenian section of the
pipeline and will repay the loan with power supplies. The Iranian
Mehr news agency reported on July 17 that the two sides also plan to
start building a large hydroelectric plant next year on the Arax
River marking the Armenian-Iranian border.
In addition, the Armenian government is currently building a second,
bigger highway leading to the Iranian border in the hope of boosting
trade with Iran. In 2005, Armenia’s trade with Iran totaled a modest
$105 million. The European Union, by comparison, accounted for more
than a third of Armenia’s $2.6 billion external trade in 2005.
Commerce with Iran proved vital for Armenia’s economic survival
during the early 1990s, however, when the conflicts in the breakaway
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and elsewhere in the South Caucasus all
but cut off the country from the outside world. Unlike Turkey, the
Islamic Republic did not close its border with its Christian neighbor
out of solidarity with Muslim Azerbaijan. Observers believe that by
supporting Yerevan, Tehran has sought to limit Turkish presence in
the region and contain separatist sentiment among Iran’s sizeable
ethnic Azeri minority.
"We are building multi-faceted relations with our neighbor and friend
Armenia," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said during a
visit to Yerevan in February. "We are trying to ensure that they have
a regional significance."
Having a warm rapport with Iran has always been a matter of virtual
national consensus in Armenia. Many politicians and ordinary people
see it as a way of mitigating the effects of the continuing
Azerbaijani and Turkish blockades. "Given this geopolitical
environment, Armenia has the legitimate right to cooperate with Iran
for ensuring its security," Stepan Safarian of the Armenian Center
for National and International Studies, a Yerevan-based think-tank,
told EurasiaNet. "Besides, Armenia has an energy surplus and its only
major export market at present is Iran," he said. "So there is also a
lot of economic interest involved."
Not surprisingly, the United States, an equally important partner of
Armenia, has followed Armenian-Iranian cooperation with unease. But
while openly voicing its opposition to the Iran-Armenia pipeline, the
US administration seems to be acquiescing to this and other
Armenian-Iranian energy projects. "The United States is very
sympathetic to Armenia’s efforts to diversify sources of energy,"
Washington’s outgoing ambassador to Yerevan, John Evans, said earlier
this year. He also argued that "up to now" the Armenian government
has not breached long-standing US sanctions against Iran.
The fact that Kocharian chose to meet Ahmadinejad amidst Tehran’s
intensifying nuclear standoff with the West suggests that Armenia is
not under strong US pressure to freeze ties with the Iranian regime.
Yerevan also makes no secret of its strong opposition to any US
military campaign against Iran. "There are hardly any political
circles in Armenia that believe the dispute over Iran’s nuclear
program must be resolved by military means," said analyst Safarian.
The Americans may well be happy with the recent controversial
settlement of Armenia’s gas dispute with Russia, which is widely seen
as a setback for Armenian-Iranian energy cooperation. Under the deal
cut last April, the Kocharian administration agreed to hand over a
large thermal power plant in the central town of Hrazdan to Russia in
exchange for a temporary increase (until 2009) in the price of
Russian natural gas delivered to Armenia. Yerevan had pledged late
last year to place the incomplete but modern facility under Iranian
control. There were reports that Russia’s state-run Gazprom monopoly
will also gain ownership of the Armenian section of the gas pipeline
from Iran as part of the settlement. Gazprom initially confirmed
these reports, but later refuted them, as did the Armenian
government.
Still, Gazprom’s deputy chairman, Aleksandr Ryazanov, announced on
June 29 that the Russian giant intends to buy the pipeline, a conduit
which was supposed to end the Russian monopoly on gas supplies to
Armenia. The Russians had already made sure that the pipeline’s
diameter is not large enough to allow Iran to export gas to Georgia
and other countries through Armenian territory. Analysts believe
Ahmadinejad and Kocharian discussed the issue during their July 6
meeting in Tehran. However, neither leader commented on it
afterwards.
Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.