When implementers debate
It was expected that the office of former president Robert Kocharyan would disseminate a statement in answer to energy minister Armen Movsisyan’s and education minister Armen Ashotyan’s announcements.
Armen Movsisyan said concerning the Armenian government’s deed with Russia according to the “Property against debt” agreement: “This transaction differs from the “Property against debt” deal initiated by Mr Kocharyan. It is different due to the fact that Russia took on the half of the debt and long-term predictability of gas prices is a significant economic achievement for stability. This is in the interests of our state, which will not leave dead large enterprises behind its trace but will revive many companies.”
Robert Kocharyan’s office has responded to this statement by thanking the minister for providing details of the deal “Property against debt,” but disseminated another announcement to provide additional details. “The idea of “Property against debt” came from the presidents of Armenia and Russia. However, negotiations in the framework of the “Property against debt” were conducted by our intergovernmental commissions, and at that time Serzh Sargsyan and Ilya Klebanov were co-chairmen of that very commission. All agreements that concerned the selection of enterprises, evaluation and defining the responsibilities of the parties were carried out by that commission, which was written in a protocol. Armen Movsisyan, as the minister of energy, was responsible for the part of energy actives. The final results of negotiations were reported to the presidents of Armenia and Russia for getting their confirmation. By the way, Robert Kocharyan still believes the agreement was good and the commission worked well. Armen Movsisyan’s interview shows that during the time he has reconsidered his own input in that agreement. What can we do? Sometimes things like this happen to people. This is all about the agreement of 2002,” writes the statement of the second president’s office.
Let’s leave the sentimental part and focus on the fact that Robert Kocharyan believes that the “Property against debt” was a good deal.
In 2002 Armenia forfeited properties to Russia against 98 million dollar debt, and the properties included Mars CJSC (evaluated at 56.29 million), Yerevan Mathematics Machinery CJSC (2.75 million), Yerevan Automatic Management CJSC (3.37 million dollars), Yerevan Material-Science CJSC (0.35 million) and Hrazdan HES properties (31 million).
It is worth paying special attention to Hrazdan HES. Years ago the Russian regnum published the letter of the Russian deputy PM I. Klebanov to the Russian PM M. Kasyanov in 2001. The letter was not signed and had the following content: “Electrical energy is the only sector of the Armenian economy that does not require huge immediate investments and has a lot of potential for export.”
This means that Russia took over the infrastructure that is strategically important for Armenia and also paid attention to the companies that would be operated without significant investment. In fact most of these goals were reached.
In the same letter Klebanov said that if the Armenian-Russian companies did not work, the Armenian opposition would use that fact for their purposes.
None of these companies works now. As Armen Movsisyan said, those companies are dead.
Robert Kocharyan did not challenge that assertion in his statement. However, he says that it was a good deal, the commission worked well, and it does not matter if those companies are dead now. This is like a medical surgery that was successful but the patient did not survive.
It is worth mentioning that there is a fact that can change Robert Kocharyan’s opinion about the mentioned transaction with Russia. In 2008 the Russian Property Management Agency transferred the management of Mars factory and 3rd bloc to Sitronix company for 3 years, and in May the term of this agreement as prolonged for ten years. Sitronix company is under the management of the Russian AFK Sistema company, and Robert Kocharyan has been on the financial board of directors of shareholders of this corporation since 2009.
The HES of Hrazdan was estimated at 31 million dollars. Even though this power plant is one of the strongest and most important energy production in Armenia, Russians are considering it old as it was built in 60s. Our government used to refer to these words to forfeit that company to Russia against lower prices. Through this deal the Russians got back their debt of 100 million dollars from their ally Armenia.
In 2002 information was published that in the middle of the negotiation the Russian party suggested to operate the half-built fifth bloc of the power plant and start producing energy without having transferred that company to anyone. At that time Klebanov did not refute that information. “It is the next topic of our negotiation… It is not a priority for us now. After signing this agreement we can discuss the issue of the fifth bloc,” said Klebanov in an interview to Radio Liberty.
In fact it was a very important issue, and Russians solved the problem of the fifth bloc and gas pipeline efficiently for their external policy. Recently they took Armenia’s last 20% share in the gas company. Looking at the history we will see that during the past 10-11 the Russians have been slowly taking Armenia’s strategic and important companies and infrastructure of energy production from us. They did it phase by phase, under the office of different governments in Armenia.
Looking at all these agreements we may assume that the Property for Debt transaction, the transfer of the fifth bloc to Russia in 2006 and the transfer of the last 20% of Armenia in the gas company to Russia were different components of the same deal. This process started by Russia and for the interests of Russia. The Armenian government has been an implementer. Now, the implementers of the same deal of different times are accusing each other in mistakes. There is no separate case in this process. The whole thing was successful, but for Russia only.
Or this reason, an expert who said that in order to analyze and understand our mistakes we should establish the fact that this deal was done under the tenure of these presidents. What was done was one transaction, for the interests of Armenia’s ally. This means there is no reason to debate between the two governments.
By Babken Tunyan
