AHMADINEJAD TO OPEN FIRST STRETCH OF ARMENIAN GAS PIPELINE FROM IRAN

The New Anatolian, Turkey
March 20 2007

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Armenian counterpart
on Monday formally open the first stretch in Armenia of a natural
gas pipeline.

Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian will inaugurate
the 40-kilometer (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 400
million cubic meters (14 billion cubic feet) of gas a year; when the
pipeline is completed and extends to the capital, Yerevan, the volume
could rise to 2.5 billion cubic meters (88 billion cubic feet) a year.

Rain and fog prevented a helicopter flight that was to transport
Ahmadinejad, and he was expected to arrive later by road.

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.

Landlocked 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.