Panorama.am reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has expressed concern over reports that the United States is considering supplying weapons to Ukraine. “The Kremlin believes that countries aspiring to a role in the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine must avoid actions that could provoke a new period of tension in Donbass,” Peskov said. The online publication finds this argument disingenuous. It points out that Russia itself has sold weapons to Azerbaijan despite being a mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
“The sales of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan are the main reason for a transformation of Russian-Armenian relations,” writes Lragir.am. It says that not only Armenia’s government and opposition forces but even the parents of soldiers serving in the Armenian army criticize Russian arms sales to Baku. It also argues that neither the United States nor France, the two other co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, has signed major arms deals with Azerbaijan.
“Aravot reports on President Serzh Sarkisian’s statement that unspecified “experts” are now looking into the possibility of supplying Iranian natural gas to Europe via Armenia. Artyom Tonoyan, an expert on Iranian affairs, tells the paper that Yerevan has already made clear before that it would welcome such an ambitious project. He suggests that the project is still far from being implemented due to “technical issues” such as the small capacity of the existing pipeline in Armenia transporting Iranian gas and the high cost of delivering that gas from Georgia to Europe via the Black Sea. “Generally speaking, the area of energy is at the center of Armenian-Iranian relations and is one of the most dynamically developing directions,” he says, pointing to the ongoing construction of a third Armenian-Iranian electricity transmission line.
(Tigran Avetisian)
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