Georgia-Azerbaijan Gas Deal was Positive for Armenia as Well: Former Georgian Diplomat
“Gas issue of Georgia may be considered as solved, in favor of the whole region,” Irakli Menagarishvili, former Georgian MFA, told 168.am, commenting on the gas deal concluded between Georgia and Azerbaijan. Note, Kakha Kaladze, Georgia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Energy, and Rovnag Abdullayev, head of State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), signed an agreement in Tbilisi recently, pursuant which Georgia will obtain additional 500 million m3 gas from Azerbaijan.
Georgia and Azerbaijan agreed not only on increasing volumes of supplied gas, but also on reducing of its price. Not also, that in the period of a few previous months Georgia was negotiating both with SOCAR and Gazprom, insisting that it needs extra volumes of gas, and SOCAR isn’t able to provide it. Menagarishvili positively assessed the negotiated deal, claiming it was a good variant, than that negotiated with Gazprom.
In his words, Russia isn’t a reliable partner for Georgia, and negotiations, upon many politicians, were doomed to failure. “Although negotiations are in process, I don’t hope, that they’ll essentially support Georgia to solve its energy issues. I consider, these negotiations solve other issue between Georgia and Russia, by the way, the process revealed that tension between the parties is high. Georgia strives to have secure neighborhood, to which, in essence, this attempt of cooperation is directed to. I think, by Georgia-Azerbaijan deal the issue was greatly settled, we may say, that Georgia found an optimal variant for itself, and bargained between Azerbaijan and Russia. It’s not excluded that further negotiations with Russia will bear an artificial character, as Azerbaijan will provide total necessary volume to Georgia,” Menagarishvili stated.
In his conviction, this is a positive circumstance for Armenia, as well as during Russia-Georgia negotiations rumors were being circulated in the media on various gas schemes, which might have caused more dependency of both Armenia and Georgia on Russia. “There were standpoints that Russia will try to close chances for Iran. In essence, all Russia’s hopes vanished,” former Minister said. In his conviction, against the background of Russia’s strong positions, for the South Caucasus it’s extremely important not to more strengthen them and not lead the whole region to complete paralytic condition.
“Russia’s current policy in various regions has these very characteristics, thus we should avoid of bigger dependency,” Menagarishvili said.
By Araks Martirosyan
