ArmInfo. The transfer of the concession for the management of Armenia's railways to Kazakhstan is a much-discussed issue in Yerevan. Alisher Abdreshev, a leading expert at the Department of European and American Studies at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KISS), stated this in an interview with an ArmInfo correspondent on September 24 on the sidelines of the APRI Armenia 2026 forum.
According to the expert, there should be no unnecessary controversy or politicization of this issue. "Some work at the government level could likely be conducted, but at the expert level, we don't yet fully understand what conditions will be offered and what practical aspects are being discussed," Abdreshev noted.
As a reminder, back in February of this year, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan began raising the issue of transferring the Russian concession to a friendly third party. He named Kazakhstan, the UAE, and Qatar as possible options. On March 26, Pashinyan announced that Yerevan would not object to transferring a concession to manage the republic's railways to a Kazakh company if an agreement was reached with Russia. He argued that Yerevan was allegedly losing its competitive advantages and that the railway issue should be resolved with Russia "in a friendly, fraternal manner."
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called Nikol Pashinyan's statement that Russia's concession management of Armenian railways creates competitive costs for the Armenian side strange. She emphasized that the Russian operator is a structure that does not deprive the Republic of Armenia of competitive advantages, but, on the contrary, creates them.
It is noteworthy that on April 6, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy JSC (KTZ) and the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan stated that "the Kazakh side is not currently negotiating the acquisition of the Russian concession for Armenian Railways."
It should be noted that SCR CJSC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian Railways OJSC.
On February 13, 2008, in Yerevan, Russian Railways OJSC and the Republic of Armenia signed a concession agreement on the transfer of the Republic's railway transport system to the management of SCR CJSC. According to the agreement, the concession agreement is 30 years, with the right to extend it for an additional 10 years after the first twenty years of operation by mutual agreement of the parties. The objectives of JSC "SCR" include the modernization of the railway infrastructure of the Republic of Armenia, the development of cooperation with the states neighboring Armenia, the development of domestic and international passenger and freight traffic. The amount of investments carried out by the Company is $ 572 million. JSC "SCR" began its activities on June 1, 2008.
