U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian signed in Yerevan on February 9 a joint statement on the “completion of negotiations” on the agreement. Although the statement says nothing about the new plant, it represents the clearest indication yet that the Armenian government wants to rely on the United States in the possible implementation of its extremely ambitious project.
“American technology is going to be coming to this country,” Vance told a joint news conference with Pashinian.
“That means up to $5 billion in initial U.S. exports, plus an additional $4 billion in long-term support through fuel and maintenance contracts,” he said, clearly alluding to the construction of the new Armenian nuclear plant.
Russian officials expressed concern at such a prospect in the following days. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that Moscow is offering Yerevan better terms than Washington.
Pashinian’s government says it wants to replace Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear plant with a modern facility equipped with small modular reactors (SMRs), a new and relatively untested technology. Metsamor, which produces around one-third of the country’s electricity, is due to be decommissioned in 2036.
Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, argued on February 13 that the U.S. itself does not yet have a functioning SMR plant. He claimed that the possible construction of such a facility in Armenia would therefore pose an environmental threat to not only the South Caucasus country but also Russia.
“If the construction of small reactors using American technology in Armenia moves into the practical phase, we, like all other states in the region and the people of Armenia itself, will be forced to consider these new nuclear safety risks,” Shoigu told the RIA Novosti news agency. “Essentially, we will have to assume that American nuclear technology experiments will be conducted nearby, in a seismically active zone. This should therefore be considered a threat.”
In a short statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, a deputy minister of territorial administration and infrastructures, Narek Apitonian, said late on Monday that the Armenian government is still weighing up various options for implementing its nuclear project. A government-owned company in charge of the project will submit SMR-related recommendations to the government, he said. Apitonian did not specify when that could happen.
Pashinian similarly downplayed the nuclear agreement with the U.S. when he spoke to reporters on February 13. He said it will only give Armenia access to “complete information about the modular reactor technologies that the United States has.”
The $9 billion in total funding cited by Vance nearly matches Armenia’s entire state budget for this year. Pashinian’s domestic critics believe that a U.S.-led nuclear project is therefore too expensive to be ever implemented in Armenia. Some of them claim that Pashinian is using the issue for geopolitical purposes.