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18.03.2014

GAS TRANSIT PIPELINE IRAN-ARMENIA: A CHANGE OF DISCOURSE

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Sevak Sarukhanyan

The political crisis in Ukraine prompted stormy debates in the political analyst circles of Armenia regarding the causes of the crises and resultant potential changes in the world. Unfortunately there is little meaningful analysis for Armenia in terms of the ramifications of a new standoff round between Russia and the West, although such ramifications could be quite palpable. This is true at least because one of the parties involved in the Ukrainian crisis, Russia, is the largest trade partner of Armenia, whereas Ukraine itself is Armenia’s the second largest trade partner among the CIS countries.

Another important factor that might affect the socio-economic situation in Armenia is the potential international sanctions to be possibly imposed on Russia, which could do a significant harm to the Russian economy. As Armenian economy strongly depends on Russia, such sanctions cannot go unnoticed. A crisis in Russia would deal a blow not only to large Russian corporations, but also would thin the wallets of all people in the country, including the migrants working there. This may lead to a significant decrease in money transfers from Russia to Armenia, directly affecting the microeconomic situation in our country. Admittedly, such possible consequences were mentioned by some representatives of our government’s economic section, who apparently realize how difficult it actually would be for Armenia to develop in the new conditions.

These are just some of the aspects that must be considered in political analyses of Ukrainian crisis upshots for Armenia. Actually there are all sorts of additional factors in play, from economic to military/political ones.

However, instead of discussing the critical indeed situation Armenia might find itself in, many analysts in Yerevan talk about the “positive” effects that Russo-Western conflict might bring to the Republic of Armenia.

One of such potentially “positive” effects is Armenia becoming an important gas transit country for the EU. The logic seems obvious: as Ukraine plunges into conflict with Russia, the EU soon will impose sanctions on Russia and refuse to buy the Russian natural gas, a new source of which is evidently Iran with its second largest gas reserves in the world. With the choice of Iran as the EU supplier, a new gas pipeline will have to be constructed through the territory of Armenia.

The idea to make Armenia a transit country for the Iranian gas does seem quite attractive. Under such circumstances the Iranian gas will be supplied to Europe by a gas pipeline to be constructed, passing through Armenia, Georgia, under the Black Sea to Ukraine and Moldova. The question is why the EU and Iran would invest tens of billions of dollars in this adventure?

And it is an adventure, because when constructing pipelines the political map of the world is first looked upon, not the physical one. The situation with it is more or less apparent:

1) First, the EU and Iran would have to come to an agreement on pipeline construction and raise funds for it, though this is a purely financial matter.

2) The construction of the pipeline will take several years.

3) The pipeline will have to pass through mountainous and not very convenient path and enter Armenia right next door to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone, where armed clashes may break out any moment. And somehow, the EU and IRI will turn a blind eye on that.

4) After Armenia the pipeline will go into Georgia, which has solved neither the Abkhazian, nor South Ossetian conflicts, nor has it normalized relations with Russia and still suffers from insufficient political stability in the country. And somehow this would cause no concerns in the EU and IRI either.

5) Afterwards, the pipeline will pass under the Black Sea and reach Ukraine. Yet it is not clear, where exactly it will have to make a landfall. In the past, when Yushchenko was in power, Crimea was discussed as a possible destination, but now the situation is somewhat different. Suppose, the gas pipeline will pass under the Black Sea and turn up in Odessa, but it is also a zone of Russian-Ukrainian conflict, although to a lesser extent than Donetsk and Kharkov.

6) Finally, the assumed gas pipeline will enter Europe, on the way passing by the conflict zone of Transnistria.

For the sake of an analogy, one may picture a similar gas pipeline scheme. For instance, Iran will construct a pipeline to Iraq through Kurdish and Sunni zones, then it will go into Syria, where civil war is still ongoing, then into Palestine, Jordan and end up in Gaza Strip, where Iran will build a natural gas liquefaction plant to export the gas to the world markets.

For both of these cases there an alternative direct route through Turkey, which during the last decades has proven itself as a stable country in terms of an international transportation corridor.

In reality, the quality of discourse in Armenia around the Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine, Russia and even less so with Europe. This is part of the internal Armenian socio-political process, where specificity and quality are substituted for rainbow-chasing, which allows foregoing discussion of the concrete concepts/problems and playing a “big game” instead… as the discusser bears no responsibility for its collapse, anyway.


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