On the prospect of swap delivery of Turkmen gas to Armenia – an outlook of Iran
Iranian experts commented on the possibility of realization of the project of swap delivery of Turkmen gas to Armenia. Teheran is interested in any initiative directed to the development of cooperation, Sputnik Iran expert on issues of political geography and problems of Central Asian Caucasus countries, teacher of the Department for Global Studies of Teheran University Bahram Amirahmadian said, comments on the possibility of getting natural gas from Turkmenistan through Iran by Armenia.
In early February deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan in his interview to Sputnik Armenia stated that negotiations on swap delivery of gas from Turkmenistan continue despite attempts to prevent the project’s realization. Correspondents of Sputnik Iran talked with Iranian experts about the possibility of realization of such project.
According to Bahram Amirahmadian, Turkmenistan has an infrastructure, namely the gas pipeline necessary for delivery of gas to Iran and Teheran can help it with gas transit. He noted that Armenia and Turkmenistan enter into an integrated power grid with Iran. As he said, as a whole the transit of Turkmen gas to Armenia through Iran is quite possible. Such tripartite cooperation of Iran, Turkmenistan and Armenia can be beneficial to each side.
In turn, independent Iranian expert on issues of the Near East Farzad Ramazani Bonesh specifies that Turkmenistan possesses large supplies of gas and will aspire to raise sales of resources. Armenia does not possess oil or gas stocks and aspires to find an exporter of such resources. «If between two countries an agreement on gas is reached, then Armenia can easily import it by swap-transaction. In this plan Iran can play a useful role at once for both countries», - Ramazani told.
The project of purchase of natural gas from Turkmenistan by Armenia by swap assumes that Ashgabat will deliver fuel to northern provinces of Iran and Teheran, in turn, will deliver its gas to Yerevan.
