ArmInfo. Armenia is being consistently and methodically pushed out of the North-South energy corridor project, and given the similarly disappointing energy situation of the transport and communications component, as well as from the North-South general strategy. Vahe Davtyan, an expert in the field of energy security, Doctor of Political Sciences expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
"This is achieved thanks to Baku's consistently implemented energy policy, which is accompanied by an inherently anti-Iranian policy of people who consider themselves the leadership of Armenia. I can say that both of them have been very successful in their actions. This has already led to the formation of tangible and quite serious risks for the national security of Armenia. Armenia has been considered as a beneficiary of the international North-South corridor since the signing of an interstate agreement with the Russian Federation, Georgia and the Islamic Republic of Iran on the establishment of an electric power corridor in order to synchronize energy systems in 2016. However, unfortunately, as of today we have to talk about the prospects for Armenia's participation in this mega-project in the past tense," he said.
The expert recalled the consideration within the framework of the North-South energy corridor project of the third Iran-Armenia power line, which, according to the project, was to be put into operation by the winter of 2019. Later, the deadline for the project was postponed to 2021, and now to 2024. According to Davtyan, all this has become one of the direct manifestations of the conspiracy policy of the current authorities of Armenia itself in the direction of squeezing the country out of regional strategic, communication projects.
According to the expert, as a result, Tehran started parallel talks on the same topic with Baku. And quite recently, on March 17, the prospects for the North-South energy corridor, already in the Azerbaijan-Iran- Russia format, were discussed in Moscow by Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov and Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji. In this light, Davtyan considers that the issue of synchronizing the energy systems of the Russian Federation and Iran over the territory of Azerbaijan has been almost completely resolved.
"Thus, we have to state that Armenia is actually being squeezed out of the North-South electricity corridor project. This creates additional risks and threats to the energy security of our country in the future, and moreover, not only of geo-economic type. For example, in the form of periodic increases in domestic electricity tariffs. It is necessary to understand that the same multimillion-dollar debts accumulated by the 5th power unit of the Hrazdan TPP are due precisely to the failure of the construction project of the 3rd transmission line. Without serious export opportunities, the successful operation of such a facility with such generation capacities is simply impossible," Davtyan summed up.
