Iranian, Armenian presidents hold talks
IRNA website
19 Mar 07
Tehran, 19 March: Following the official inauguration of the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline at the Armenian town of Meghri, President
Mahmud Ahmadinezhad and his Armenian counterpart, Robert Kocharyan,
started talks on Monday [19 March].
The Iranian president was accompanied by his country’s ministers of
oil and energy as well as a number of officials of its oil and gas
sectors.
The two presidents, after the inaugural ceremony, proceeded to the
Armenian Customs Office building, where they are to sign cooperation
agreements in the fields of electricity, water and energy.
The two presidents, in their talks, will also discuss bilateral
relations in addition to the new gas pipeline.
Their talks will be followed by a press conference, where they will
meet representatives of the mass media of both countries and answer
questions.
The pipeline has a total length of 140 km, 100 km of which is in
Iranian territory and 40 km in Armenian territory. It will transfer
10m cubic meters of Iranian natural gas to Armenia per day in its
initial phase.
Test operations on the project have been conducted. The project will
be ready for delivery to Armenia within the next few months.
The pipeline has an approximate cost of 120m dollars, 85 per cent of
which was financed by the Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI) and
the remaining 15 per cent put up by Yerevan.
Inauguration of the pipeline will allow transfer of 400m cubic meters
of Iranian gas to Armenia per year during the first phase of the
project, this figure later to be increased to 2.5bn cubic meters per
year.