Armenia raises issue of natural gas supplies from Azerbaijan

According to Armenian media, the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure noted that Baku and Yerevan have not yet touched upon this topic in their discussions, Azernews reports.

The ministry said that the gas transportation systems of Armenia and Azerbaijan were connected through the following main gas pipelines:

Kazakh-Yerevan, 1000 mm in diameter, 6 km to be restored;

Ilyichevsk-Yerevan, 700 mm diameter, 22 km to be restored;

Goris-Nakhchivan, 700 mm diameter, 16.5 km are subject to rehabilitation.

As early as last fall, Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Hakob Vardanyan spoke about Armenia's readiness to restore gas pipelines from Azerbaijan if political issues are resolved.

The restoration of gas pipelines between Armenia and Azerbaijan can be considered in the context of opening communications in the South Caucasus.

And Azerbaijan, unlike Armenia, in every possible way contributes to the realisation of this clause of the trilateral statement signed in 2020. In particular, the Azerbaijani side is actively working to restore the Zangazur corridor. The Armenian side, on the other hand, is avoiding concrete steps in this direction, arguing this behaviour with groundless "fears".

In this case, the question arises: is it worth discussing the restoration of gas pipelines now if the Armenian side wants to leave everything only on paper?