Thursday, July 7, 2022
Iran Again Warns Against ‘Geopolitical Changes’ In South Caucasus
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian greets Ali Shamkhani, secretary of
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Yerevan, July 7, 2022.
A senior Iranian security official reaffirmed Tehran’s opposition to
“geopolitical changes” in the South Caucasus and support for Armenian
sovereignty over transit roads passing through Armenia when he visited Yerevan
on Thursday.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security
Council, met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his Armenian opposite
number for talks that focused on regional security and Armenian-Iranian economic
cooperation.
“Ali Shamkhani emphasized that Iran considers any attempt to change the
geopolitical situation in the region unacceptable and noted that his country
also supports the process of unblocking [transport] infrastructures within the
framework of preserving the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states,”
Pashinian’s press office said in a statement on the talks.
Other Iranian officials, notably President Ebrahim Raisi, have made similar
statements in recent months amid Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on restoring
transport links between the two South Caucasus states.
Such links are envisaged by the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020
war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The deal specifically commits Yerevan to opening rail
and road links between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has claimed that it calls for an
exterritorial land corridor that would pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian
province bordering Iran. Armenian leaders deny this, saying that Azerbaijani
citizens and cargo cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls.
“Statements made about transport corridors are unacceptable to us,” the Iranian
ambassador in Yerevan, Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri, reportedly said during a visit
to Syunik in late April.
Armenia - An Armenian flag is hoisted at a military base on the border with
Iran, October 7, 2021.
According to the Armenian government statement, Shamkhani told Pashinian that
Iran is ready to deepen ties with Armenia “in all spheres.” The two men stressed
in that regard the importance of increasing bilateral trade and implementing
joint energy and transport projects.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Shamkhani as telling Armen
Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, that Tehran sees “no
limitations for expanding bilateral ties as the Iranian and Armenian nations
have over the past decades backed each other in difficult times at the regional
and international levels.”
Grigorian’s office said the two officials stressed the importance of Chabahar,
an Iranian cargo port in the Gulf of Oman, “in the context of Armenian-Iranian
relations and especially the development of Syunik.”
India has built two terminals at Chabahar to bypass Pakistan in cargo traffic
with Iran, Afghanistan and central Asian countries.
Meeting in Yerevan last October, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Indian
counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar called for establishing an Armenian-Indian
transport link passing through Chabahar. Mirzoyan said the Iranian port could be
used for cargo shipments to not only Armenia but also neighboring Georgia,
Russia and even Europe.
An Indian-Armenian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation held its
latest session in Yerevan earlier this week.
Pashinian Wants Quick Implementation Of Border Deal With Turkey
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Turkey - The Church of Tigran Honents at the ruins of Ani, the capital of a
medieval Armenian kingdom, on the Turkey-Armenia border, 11Sep2008
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian told Armenian government agencies on Thursday to
closely cooperate with their Turkish counterparts for implementing “as soon as
possible” an agreement to open the Turkish-Armenian border to citizens of third
countries.
Special envoys of Armenia and Turkey reached the agreement in Vienna last week
during a fourth round of negotiations on normalizing relations between the two
neighboring states.
The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministries said after the talks that
“third-country citizens visiting Armenia and Turkey” will be allowed to cross
the land border “at the earliest date possible.” They said the two sides also
agreed to launch “direct air cargo trade between Armenia and Turkey.”
“It is now very important that our agencies work with relevant Turkish agencies
because the implementation of the political agreements depends on that work,”
Pashinian said at a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. “So my order is that we
work in a coordinated way so that we implement the agreements reached as soon as
possible.”
Turkey -- Turkish soldiers stand guard on a road near Kars leading to a closed
border crossing with Armenia, 15Apr2009
Pashinian did not give any time frames for what would be the first step towards
the opening of the border which Turkey has for decades kept closed. Nor did he
specify administrative and logistical measures that need to be taken for that
purpose.
The Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures, which
deals with transport-related issues, did not immediately comment on those steps.
Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic ties.
Ankara has long made the normalization of relations with Yerevan conditional on
a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan. Turkish
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has repeatedly said that his government
coordinates the Turkish-Armenian dialogue with Baku.
Armenian leaders have said, for their part, that they want an unconditional
normalization of Turkish-Armenian ties. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan
complained in late May that Ankara is “synchronizing” the Turkish-Armenian
normalization process with Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
Armenia -- President Armen Sarkissian (second from right) visits a
Russian-Armenian border guard post on Armenia's border with Turkey, July 4, 2020.
Pashinian and members of his political team regularly stress the economic
significance of cross-border commerce with Turkey as well as Azerbaijan. Economy
Minister Vahan Kerobian insisted on Thursday that it will have “very big
economic effects” on Armenia. But he did not back up his optimism with concrete
economic projections.
Most Armenian opposition politicians as well as some economists and
businesspeople are far more skeptical about the likely impact of an open border
with Turkey. They say that it would primarily lower the cost of importing
Turkish goods to Armenia and thus hurt local manufacturers and farmers.
Turkish imports accounted for the bulk of Turkish-Armenian trade which stood,
according to Armenian government data, at 73.5 billion drams ($180 million) last
year.
Armenian Inflation Hits Double Digits
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - A supermarket in Yerevan, April 29, 2021.
Inflation in Armenia continued to rise in June, reaching an annual rate of 10.3
percent, government data shows.
According to the Armenian government’s Statistical Committee, soaring food
prices remained the key factor behind the increased cost of living. They were up
by an average of 17 percent year on year.
The Statistical Committee reported an almost 46 percent surge in the average
cost of vegetables mostly grown in the country. It said the prices of bread and
beef were up by about 20 percent from June 2021.
Economy Minister Vahan Kerobian admitted on Thursday that the much
higher-than-projected inflation rate could increase poverty in Armenia, which
already grew in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. But he said that the
impact of the rising consumer prices should be offset by robust economic growth
recorded in the first five months of this year. The growth is translating into
new jobs and higher wages, he told journalists.
Kerobian also pointed to the government’s decision last week to raise the
national minimum wage by 10 percent, to 75,000 drams ($182). The measure will
take effect in January 2023.
Government officials have said that pensions will also rise next year. But they
have not yet specified the extent of the promised increase.
Inflation hit the double-digit rate last month despite a sharp appreciation of
the Armenian currency, the dram, which began in mid-March amid an influx of
thousands of Russians who left their country following the Russian invasion of
Ukraine. The dram’s exchange rate has also been affected by a significant
strengthening of the Russian ruble.
Armenia’s Central Bank has made clear that it will not cut interest rates or
intervene in the domestic currency market to reverse the dram’s appreciation
which is hitting hard some Armenian exporters. The bank’s governor, Martin
Galstian, insisted last month that the stronger dram is somewhat easing external
inflationary pressures on the Armenian economy.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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