Deputy Khachatryan: Europe is interested in Armenia only for the sake of confrontation with the Russian Federation

YEREVAN, September 23 - RIA Novosti. Europe is interested in Armenia only in the context of confrontation with Russia, Sevak Khachatryan, a member of the Armenian parliament from the Armenia opposition bloc, told reporters.

“These people (Armenian authorities - ed.) cannot understand that Europe, the European states need us as much as we can harm Russia or break away from it completely, otherwise we are not interesting. They want to get Ukraine. Why do we give in to these demands?” - said Khachatryan.

According to him, the opposition warns that a deterioration in relations with Russia could lead, in particular, to an increase in the price of gas supplied to the republic.

“The Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia predicted an apocalyptic situation in this case, and I think that the Chairman of the Central Bank, in any case, is an intelligent specialist, and he wanted to hedge his bets by warning the authorities that the economy would be in an apocalyptic state, and, of course, we understand what this will lead to,” the deputy said.

He added that the Armenian authorities are trying to beg gas from different countries. “But, in any case, there will no longer be gas at the price at which we now receive it, the consumer in Armenia receives it, and this is the result of their incompetent foreign policy,” Khachatryan said.

On July 30, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov told reporters that Russia supplies gas to Armenia at a price of $177.5 per thousand cubic meters, while current “European” gas prices exceed $600 per thousand cubic meters. According to him, this cannot be called anything other than subsidies, since this amount is about $1 billion a year.