In the program “Pressing,” Satik Seyranian’s guest is Suren Sargsyan, an international expert and head of the Armenian Center for American Studies:
The main theses of the interview are as follows:
- TRIPP is just a component of a global geopolitical, strategically significant project that will pass through Armenian territory. In other words, we are dealing with a global project aimed at exporting resources from Central Asia, Turkmen gas, and all possible resources from various states through the Caspian Sea and then through the South Caucasus to Europe. This has great strategic significance.
- The project, of course, also has an economic component. Essentially, it bypasses China, Russia, and Iran. The main idea is to have a route under U.S. influence that circumvents its main opponents or competitors.
This direction has long existed in U.S. strategic projects. To understand the situation and this project correctly, one must also look at history:
There is a very interesting episode from the late 1980s that I read in the declassified archives of the U.S. State Department and also included in my book:
The first Nagorno-Karabakh war occurred, Armenia won, Russia was more active, and the United States could not gain the influence it can today.
TRIPP is not about Armenia at all; only a small part of this project will pass through Armenia.
In this context, it is worth recalling a recent statement by the head of Russian Railways, who mentioned a figure of about 400 million dollars.
I do not think that Washington and Moscow will agree that the Russians should participate in TRIPP while Armenia says, “no, you should not participate.”
