President of the Republic of Armenia departed to Sochi for a short visit to meet with President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. Everyone knew that the two presidents had to come to an agreement concerning the gas price. People were following up on news broadcasts in order to know what happened. However, we were not able to get any information. Kocharyan and Putin met with journalists after their 5 hour negotiations. The Russian president had stated that Russia’s relations with Armenia are on a right path and corresponds to how interstate relations should be.
There was nothing said in particular regarding the gas price: “The future of the CIS countries depends on the gas price, but not the gas prices. Businessmen are leading negotiations, there are agreements, papers, contracts; the process is continuing. Businessmen are discussing that issue and they are the ones involved in the trade. We have nothing to do with trade,” said V. Putin.
This is interesting. When the president of the Federative Council of Russia was in Yerevan, he announced that the presidents of both countries will come to a final decision regarding the gas prices, however, the latter are “throwing” it all on the businessmen, basically “GasProm” and “ArmRusGasard”.
Having this in mind, the Russian president cleared a few things by saying that “the 1000 cubic meter gas price in Great Britain reaches 1000 dollars, while Russia provides Western European countries with gas for only 250 dollars.” If the Russian president considers 250 dollars as “only” 250 dollars, for us Armenians 110 dollars is the “only out of the only”. Perhaps we can interpret V. Putin’s words in the following way: we sell the gas to others for 250 dollars, so if we sell it to you for two times less, you shouldn’t complain. Well, it is hard to say whether we can interpret it like that or not.
Although both presidents state the fact that they are satisfied with the level of relations of both countries, however, the recent events force us to review those relations. Armenia is considered Russia’s strategic ally but it is not clear what privileges we have compared to the “not so strategic allies” and what have we gotten from them so far. In addition, the Russians don’t care about the debts of some countries, whereas for us, they stole five important factories from Armenia which were not functioning until now. As for the recent developments regarding the gas price, it just goes to prove that “strategic activities” are just nice words. They try to convince us not to get offended; it’s just market relations and there is nothing that they or we can do about it. Many are of the opinion that Russia is trying to have an influence on the former Soviet countries and it is doing that by using economic loops, in particular the gas prices. In response to the steps taken by Ukraine, which threatened to raise the price of the gas exported to Germany, the Russians now demand 220 dollars for 1000 cubic meters instead of the former 160 dollars. As president of the Federative Council of Russia S. Mironov said yesterday, “the prices proposed to Ukraine are all real.” If this is a way of punishing pro-American Georgia and Ukraine, in that case, where did “ForePost” go wrong in Armenia? The problem is that if they sell gas to us at a relatively low price, then it will be clear that announcing market relations is considered “phony” and the Russian government will be criticized by the world. The Russians are showing that they are doing the right thing: in the article entitled “Cold War-2006” printed in the “Moskovski Komsomolets” newspaper, the author writes: “The gas price increase not only goes for the countries with “colorful democracies”, but also, it refers to Russia’s ally Armenia and non-colorful Belarus. We must mention the fact that neither Armenian president Kocharyan or Lukashenko have gone berserk or gone hysterical, but rather, they prefer to lead peaceful negotiations,” writes the author of the article. But perhaps it would have been better for them to go berserk; after all, this has to do with the social/economic status of the people.
On the other hand, Russia has found itself in a pretty difficult situation. If Armenia becomes an exception for the increase in gas prices, this will mean applying double standards. However, if the price is raised, even until the 110 dollar mark (which is 2 times lower than the price proposed to Ukraine), we will change our attitude towards Russians and that can even turn the relations with the strategic ally from good to bad.
It is still unclear as to what decision the people will make. Until their meeting, both sides were talking about the possibility of Russia giving a subsidy to Armenia and the latter would pay off the extra amount of money. However, this is like playing games which is similar to what would be done if the price remained the same. It is impossible to cheat anyone with these games.
Currently, we are in an uncertainty but that can be solved anytime soon. It’s just that our ally is treating us as it sees fit. Well, they can do whatever they want with “ForePost”, for example, factories can be stolen, gas prices can be increased but which forbid the construction of a gas pipeline running from Iran turning the 1500 mm diameter of Armenia into 750 mm; this is so we won’t be able to export Iranian gas in the future and hurt Russia’s interests.