Monday Morning, Lebanon
March 26 2007
Armenia, Iran: A gas pipeline opened
Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian formally opened
the pipeline in the Armenian town of Agarak, near the border with
Iran.
`This is a historic event that opens a new period in the relations of
Iran and Armenia’, Kocharian said at the ceremony.
Surrounded by local villagers, the two presidents lit a symbolic
torch at the ceremony, which was delayed for hours after heavy fog
prevented Ahmadinejad’s helicopter from flying to the area. He
eventually arrived by car.
`Our relations have deepened over the last 15 years and it is my
intention to develop them further’, Ahmadinejad said during the
ceremony.
He said he hoped to increase cross-border cooperation in a range of
fields, including electricity, energy, water and telecoms.
Under a 20-year contract, Armenia is projected to receive 36 billion
cubic meters of gas through the 150-kilometer pipeline, breaking the
Russian gas giant Gazprom’s stranglehold on the ex-Soviet country’s
gas market.
Armenia is initially to receive up to 400 million cubic meters of gas
per year through the pipeline, but that amount is expected to
eventually increase to 2.3 billion cubic meters per year.
An agreement to build the 200-million-dollar (150-million-euro)
pipeline was signed in 1992, but construction only began in 2004.
Armenia funded its share of the pipeline with a 33-million-dollar
loan from the Iranian Export and Development Bank.
Armenia will pay for the gas with electricity it produces at a
Soviet-era nuclear power plant.
Landlocked Armenia has sought closer links with Iran because of an
economic blockade imposed by neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkey over the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a six-year war ending with an uneasy
cease-fire in 1994 over the majority ethnic-Armenian enclave in
Azerbaijan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
