Armenia’s Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Davit Khudatyan met on October 5 in Yerevan with a delegation headed by Mustafa Puştu, Chairman and General Manager of the Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation (TEİAŞ).
The talks focused on efforts to reestablish the cross-border connection. Khudatyan emphasized the importance of interconnecting the two countries’ electricity systems for bilateral and regional cooperation.
The Turkish delegation also met with officials from the Electric Energy System Operator of Armenia and the High-Voltage Electric Networks. No timeline was given for the activation of the line.
The talks revive an initiative pursued during the previous Armenia-Turkey diplomatic rapprochement of 2008-2009. Armenia’s public transmission company had signed an agreement with the Belgium-based UNIT Group, which was involved in electricity distribution and generation in Turkey, to supply electricity from Armenia to the Turkish market. Deliveries were expected to begin in 2009, initially at approximately 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year. However, those supplies never began. Then Energy Minister Armen Movsisyan attributed the delay to political obstacles in Turkey. The project stalled along with broader normalization efforts: protocols signed in Zurich in October 2009 to establish diplomatic relations and open the border never entered into force.
