EJ Press
Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits Armenia, seeking to boost ties
AFP
Updated: 23/Oct/2007 07:42
YEREVAN (AFP)—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in the
Armenian capital Monday for a two-day visit aimed at boosting growing
economic and political ties between the neighbouring countries.
Ahmadinejad’s plane touched down at Yerevan’s Zvartnots International
Airport, the Armenian presidential office told AFP.
Ahmadinejad and Armenian President Robert Kocharian were expected to
sign a series of bilateral agreements Monday, focusing in particular
on energy cooperation. He was also to address the Armenian parliament
and meet students and professors at Yerevan University.
"Both nations have long historical ties and much in common.
Fortunately Tehran and Yerevan have common perceptions on regional
issues and we want to boost this," Ahmadinejad said before his
arrival.
Ahmadinejad, who has caused outrage by saying the Holocaust is a
"myth," was scheduled on Tuesday to visit a memorial to victims of the
Ottoman massacres of Armenians between 1915 and 1917.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
A pending US Congressional vote on a resolution labelling the
massacres as genocide has angered Turkey, which says 250,000 to
500,000 Armenians were killed during civil strife and rejects the
notion that it was genocide.
Landlocked Armenia has sought closer links with Iran because of an
economic blockade imposed by neighbours Azerbaijan and Turkey over the
disputed Nagorny Karabakh region, as well as Armenia’s efforts to gain
international recognition of the Ottoman massacres as genocide.
In March, Kocharian and Ahmadinejad inaugurated a 150-kilometre
(93-mile) pipeline that will deliver 36 billion cubic metres (1.27
trillion cubic feet) of gas from Iran to Armenia over 20 years.
Armenia will pay for the gas with electricity it produces at a
Soviet-era nuclear plant. The two countries have also signed an
agreement to jointly develop a hydroelectric power plant on the Arax
river that runs along their shared border.
The United States has raised concerns about Armenia’s growing ties
with Iran, with the top US diplomat in Yerevan saying in June that the
country should participate in international sanctions aimed at
convincing Iran to halt its nuclear programme.
Source: