ArmInfo. In fact, with his statement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov openly acknowledged that Russia is raising gas prices for Armenia in response to legal processes instituted in our country in relation to Russian companies, an independent lawmaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Arman Babajanyan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
"When the price for Armenia and Belarus was 2-3-fold lower than the market one, it was taken for granted. I think it's wrong to recall allied relations only in a diametrically opposite situation. Nevertheless, the issues between Armenia and Russia, including the price for gas will be resolved in line with alliance and strategic partnership, "Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told participants at the Gorchakov Foundation's roundtable on April 21.
The minister called domestic tariffs another difficult chronic problem in Armenia, which hinder the most preferential approaches for final pricing. He also noted the need for alliance in all areas. "We hope that the lawsuits against the Armenian-Russian enterprises will be settled based on mutual agreement without trying to bring inappropriate relations between the allies," Lavrov said. Such statements, according to the parliamentarian, do not correspond to the existing allied, trade-economic and military-political relations between Armenia and Russia. Babajanyan regards Lavrov's statements as blackmail and interference in the internal affairs of Armenia.
The parliamentarian noted that the legal processes in relation to Russian companies in Armenia, including South Caucasus Railway, are due to their many years of activity in criminal, corruption schemes and in cooperation with the former authorities of Armenia. According to him, such behavior is inherent in Russian companies in those countries where local authorities allow this and, in a broad sense, is, unfortunately, part of the Russian business culture. According to the lawmaker, the legitimate, lawful authorities of Armenia are striving to bring into the legal field all, not just Russian, companies. In response to this, Lavrov actually responds with a threat to increase gas tariffs if Russian companies are not allowed to continue working in Armenia bypassing legislation. Babajanyan considers this situation to be unacceptable, seeing the need for a symmetric response from Yerevan.
"Moscow, of course, can afford such a cynical attitude thanks to the shameful gas agreement signed by the former authorities of Armenia. And of course, Gazprom's possession of internal gas distribution network in Armenia. It can afford to talk about raising gas tariffs, while energy prices are falling catastrophically around the world, however, the fact that our authorities inherited all this "inheritance" from their predecessors does not in any way mean that they do not need to think about revising these agreements. "it's a rather complicated process regarding all other components of interstate cooperation and relations. Nevertheless, I consider it important to project the revolution that took place in Armenia 2 years ago on the field of our relations with Russia," Babajanyan concluded.