Electricity from Turks, gas from Azerbaijanis: Pashinyan’s Ottoman trap

On July 1, the National Assembly of Armenia, at the government’s initiative, convened an extraordinary session. The agenda includes a total of 22 issues, one of which concerns amendments to the RA laws “On the Public Services Regulatory Authority” and “On Energy.” They are intended to appoint the state manager of the ENA company, owned by Samvel Karapetyan—president of the Tashir Group—who was arrested on June 19 for allegedly calling for the overthrow of the government after supporting the Armenian Church amid attacks from authorities.
Simply put, the initiative concerns the transfer of the Electric Networks of Armenia from Karapetyan’s control. Such an act has both domestic and foreign policy beneficiaries.

On June 27, Armenia’s Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, David Khudatyan, met with Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, in Istanbul. “At the meeting, we discussed possible areas of cooperation between Armenia and Turkey in the energy sector,” Khudatyan said.

Against the background of Karapetyan’s arrest, against the background of Nikol Pashinyan’s government’s policy aimed at integrating Armenia into the Turkic world, speculation quickly arose suggesting that Khudatyan may have discussed the resale of the ENA to a Turkish energy company.

Khudatyan himself stated that the claims do not correspond to reality. However, the reality is that, given the specifics of Nikol Pashinyan’s position, who wants to receive comprehensive geopolitical support from Ankara ahead of new National Assembly elections, he may try to “sell” the nationalization of the Electric Networks of Armenia in Turkey as another act of geopolitical loyalty.

This proves that Pashinyan is in control of the situation in the country and is ready to integrate Armenia’s energy system into the Turkic world with concrete steps. While he will not succeed in nationalizing, let alone reselling, the Electric Networks of Armenia, he could still “sell the show” surrounding the ENA to his Turkish colleagues.

As for the internal Armenian discourse, it would not be surprising if the so-called experts serving Pashinyan’s agenda convince the citizens of Armenia that “we can buy electricity from a Turkish company, just like we can buy gas from Azerbaijan” (moreover, statements about this have been made by Armenian officials since 2023). In other words, a narrative will be propagandized in society that, in terms of energy, we “can surrender our security to Baku and Ankara” and this will be a manifestation of sovereignty—an idea previously voiced by Pashinyan’s MP Gagik Melkonyan.

The key in this situation is that severing ties with Russia in the energy sector will make Armenia so vulnerable that on the brink of the energy crisis (and we obviously risk being left without electricity and gas), Baku and Ankara may, in exchange for energy supplies, demand from Yerevan the simultaneous implementation of a whole set of requirements: from demilitarization to resettlement of thousands of Azerbaijanis in Armenia.

Is this not a geopolitical Ottoman trap for Armenia that Nikol Pashinyan is preparing?

Think about it…