Forecast: The failure of Armenia`s involvement in the "North-South"  project is fraught with not only geo- economic but also internal  threats for the latter

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.