Yesterday, RF President Vladimir Putin stated at the RA Presidency that Russia will not be away from the Caucasus, on the contrary, it will strengthen. In the conversation with Aravot.am, RPA MP Vahram Baghdasaryan, analyzing the statement of RF President and responding to our question whether it means a capitulation of the Caucasus, said, “The comments can be different, but I think it means that Russia will not interrupt its constant friendship with the peoples of the Caucasus. Also, from strategic point of view, the Caucasus is a territory of great importance for Russia. It seems to me that much more better than worse things can be seen in the statement. The man said that we are friends, and will remain friends. I think we should not see a pretext under it.”
We inquired whether selling of the government’s 20 percent share in “Armrusgasprom” to “Gazprom” was included in the friendship. The Republican MP opines that Armenia can derive a lot of privileges from this deal. “It’s a five-year contract, the gas prices will not rise for five years, Miller said that the salaries of “Armrusgasprom” employees will increase, and they have quite a big number of employees in “Armrusgasprom”. Generally, compromises are not one-sided. The issue of this 20 %, sooner or later, was going to emerge. I think it was not giving us much, but, in this case, it may grant greater privileges.” To the question, if gas prices is not decreasing for RA citizens, what privileges are we talking about, our interlocutor, again, brought up the issue of arrangements about maintaining the gas prices for five years, as well as the increases of salaries, and added, “The issue of 30 % is regulated, which is much spoken about, the issue of subsidies is regulated. The 30%, which caused a stir…. over the last few years, we were reviewing the gas prices for several times, but now we have a five-year contract, which was quite successful.” To recall that when the gas price issue arose, the Government of Armenia announced that the Government of Russia would subsidize the 30% of gas price rise at the border. To the observation that if we make a directly comparison, whether we can say that the government’s 20% share was given for the 30% increase of gas price, our interlocutor responded, “I do not think that they have entered into a market, and they brought up the issue in advance to settle it. If you remember, the issue of 20% was again raised about two-three years ago; it seems some technical delays were taking place. However, there are mutual interests in all deals.” To the question that Armenia benefited of having a steady gas price for five years, what we are going to sell to Russia five years later to keep the gas price stable, the Republican MO said, it depends on the further development of relations, and he is optimistic in this matter.
Nelly Grigoryan
