ARMENIA-IRAN GAS PIPELINE TO OPEN

IranMania News, Iran
March 19 2007

LONDON, March 19 (IranMania) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
and his Armenian counterpart will formally open the first stretch of
a natural gas pipeline Monday in Armenia, a landlocked country that
relies on Russia for most of its gas, AP reported.

Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian will open the
25-mile section in the town of Meghri, just over the border from Iran.

Under the first stage of the project, Iran is to deliver up to 14 bln
cubic feet of gas a year. When the pipeline is completed and extends
to the capital, Yerevan, the volume could rise to 88 bln cubic feet
a year.

The project was launched in 2004 after more than a decade of
negotiations.

Russia, which supplies most of Armenia’s gas, had objected to the
project. Armenian officials said last year they were discussing the
prospect of Russia’s natural-gas monopoly Gazprom purchasing the
Armenian section of the pipeline from Iran.

Armenia has developed its relations with Iran amid economic troubles
caused by the closing of its borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan in
the wake of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan
occupied by Armenian and ethnic Armenian Karabakhi forces.

Iran also has sought projects and influence in other parts of the
former Soviet Union, mostly in Central Asia.

Last year, Ahmadinejad opened an Iranian-financed tunnel improving
connections between impoverished Tajikistan’s north and the capital
region. Tehran has focused mostly on transport and infrastructure
projects and restoring historically close cultural ties.