Armenia could start swapping goods for Iranian gas

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran’s exports of gas to Armenia can be increased and negotiations are underway to start swapping gas for goods with the country, Iranian Energy Minister Reza Akrdakanian has said, according to Mehr News Agency reports.

Making the remarks during the 16th meeting of Iran-Armenia joint commission, Ardakanian said that Iran aims to increase ties with all countries in particular its neighbors.

“Iran exports gas to Armenia and Armenia can, in urgent cases, export electricity to Iran in exchange for that,” he said.

“The capacity of gas exports from Iran to Armenia can be increased,” he added.

"As agreed, multilateral agreements are to be made to increase gas exports to Armenia and swap of goods with the country,” Ardakanian said.

He said that via Iran-Armenia cooperation and relying on Armenia’s political geography in Eurasia, both sides are trying to implement all the discussed issues during the joint commissions.

He cited the importance of bilateral cooperation between Iran and Armenia, the implementation of the third electricity transmission line, the signing of an MoU for the creation of a quadrilateral north-south corridor, making an agreement to cooperate on road and rail corridors, development of health cooperation and coordination for holding conferences as the positive steps that have been taken so far between Iran and Armenia.

According to the Iranian official, electricity exchange between Iran and Armenia is 350 MW presently.

"In the course of developing our communications with Armenia, we will complete the third line with a capacity of 700 MW of electricity transmission, which will improve the exchange capacity between the two countries to more than 1,000 megawatt by 2020," he said.

The closing ceremony of the 16th Joint Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation between Iran and Armenia was held on Tuesday with the participation of Iran's energy minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Mher Grigoryan at Iran's Ministry of Energy building in Tehran.