IRAN SEES NO OBSTACLES TO BROADER RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA
ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
March 19, 2007 Monday
Iran does not see any obstacles to an all-round expansion of relations
with Armenia, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a joint
press conference with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan on Monday.
"There are no obstacles to an expansion of ties with neighbouring
friendly Armenia," Ahmadinejad said after launching a gas pipeline
between the two countries.
The Iranian and Armenian presidents also discussed how to strengthen
relations in the fields of trade, energy, and transport.
"Today we witnessed the launch of an important project designed
to strengthen and expand relations between the two countries,"
Ahmadinejad said.
Kocharyan said the opening of a gas pipeline with Iran is a "historical
event" and "a new chapter" of Armenian-Iranian relations.
"Fifteen years ago in Megri, on the border with Iran, there were
only several rows of barbed wire on the state border of the Soviet
Union. Today the situation is totally different. Last year, 600,000
tonnes of cargoes were transported by the bridge built across the
border river Araks," the president said.
Ten years ago, the energy systems of the two countries were not
linked. Now they are planning to build a third high-voltage power
line and jointly build a hydropower plant on the Araks.
Kocharyan described the dynamics of bilateral relations as "exemplary".
"The two countries have agreed to refrain from steps that one of them
can consider unfriendly," the president said.
In his words, Armenia and Iran are trying to implement economic
projects that will establish solid links between their economies.
The total length of the gas pipeline is 141 kilometres (40 kilometres
running via Armenia) and its diameter is 700 millimetres. It will link
the two countries’ gas transportation systems. The pipeline runs from
Iranian Tebriz to the Armenian border and then from the Armenian border
settlement of Megri to the miners’ town of Kadzharan, where the pipe
will be connected to an operating line to Yerevan. Its throughput
capacity should be increased, to which end it will be necessary to
lay a new gas pipeline from southeast to central parts of the republic.
According to Armenian authorities, the gas pipeline is designed
exclusively for the republic’s internal needs and has no capacity
for transit gas supplies. "We are regarding this project as a serious
matter in enhancing Armenia’s energy security and diversifying natural
gas import routes," Kocharyan sated.
The trunk line will become an alternative to the trans-Caucasian gas
pipeline running from the North Caucasus to the Trans-Caucasus area
(Mozdok-Tbilisi-Yerevan) along which Russian natural gas is supplied
to Armenia via Georgia. Over the past 15 years, the pipeline has
been repeatedly blown up on the Georgian territory due to which gas
supplies to Armenia were interrupted, causing a crisis in the Armenian
energy system.
The intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the gas
pipeline was signed between Armenia and Iran in Yerevan on May 13,
2004 and the laying of the pipeline started simultaneously from the
two sides on November 30, 2004. The cost of the Armenian section of
the pipeline is 120 million U.S. dollars.
While at the initial stage the throughput capacity of the pipeline will
be 1.1 billion cubic metres of gas, it will grow to 2.3 billion cubic
metres of gas annually by 2019. To sustain this increase, it will be
necessary to lay 197 kilometres of a new pipeline from southeast closer
to the central part of Armenia at the Kadzharan-Sisian-Dzhemruk-Ararat
section.
Iranian gas will be supplied in exchange for Armenian electricity,
Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsesyan said.
Under the agreement, Iran will supply 36 billion cubic metres of gas
to Armenia in the next 20 years, getting electricity in exchange.