ARMENIA, IRAN PLEDGE TO WIDEN COMMERCIAL TIES
By Shakeh Avoyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
July 20 2007
Armenia and Iran pledged to give a new boost to the development of
bilateral commercial ties following a regular meeting in Yerevan on
Friday of their intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Armenian Energy
Minister Armen Movsisian, the two co-chairmen of the commission, signed
a memorandum on the start of feasibility studies on the ambitious
ideas of building an Armenian-Iranian railway and oil refinery.
Movsisian said work on a third high-voltage line linking the power
grids of the two neighboring states will get underway "in one or two
months." He said Yerevan and Tehran are also pressing ahead with the
construction of a major hydro-electric plant on the river Arax that
marks the Armenian-Iranian border.
"I am convinced that we still start concrete work on the Arax plant
next year," he told a news conference.
"Iran’s economic cooperation with Armenia is very broad-based," Mottaki
said, for his part. He welcomed a rise in bilateral trade, saying
that its volume could more than double to $500 million this year.
It was also announced that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will
pay an official visit to Armenia before the end of this year.
Ahmadinejad and his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian already
met on the Armenian-Iranian border last March during the official
inauguration of the first section of a gas pipeline that will deliver
Iranian natural gas to Armenia.
The pipeline’s second, much longer section is slated for completion
by the end of next year.
Armenia’s growing ties with Iran prompted concern from the United
States last month, with a senior American diplomat warning that they
might run counter to international sanctions imposed on Tehran over
its controversial nuclear program. "We have expressed our concerns to
the government of Armenia on all levels," said the then U.S. charge
d’affaires in Yerevan, Anthony Godfrey.
Mottaki brushed aside the warning. "Armenian-Iranian relations are
not directed against any third country," he said. "They stem from the
interests of the two countries. No third country must allow itself
to meddle in the friendly Armenian-Iranian relations."
Asked to comment on the Iranian nuclear program, Movsisian said:
"We respect the Iranian people’s right to use nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes,"
Meeting with Mottaki earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian was reported to have asked his Iranian counterpart to brief
him on the ongoing international negotiations on the issue. According
to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Mottaki assured Oskanian that
the Islamic Republic is committed to finding a negotiated solution
to the dispute "within the framework of the International Atomic
Energy Agency."