Oil and Sargsyan: how Yerevan dreamed of making money from resources of Caspian Sea

Sometimes it is very difficult to understand what Armenian politicians are guided by when making their statements. Even if you want to speak intelligently, in the end it comes out in a Chernomyrdinsky way - you wanted the best, but it turned out as always. Imagine what happens when their statements are far from reasonable.

In an interview with Fox 11, former Armenian President Armen Sarkissian shared his dreams from thirty years ago and surprised him very much.

Let's start with the not-so-surprising one. In 1996-1997, as a young politician with a wild imagination, he believed that Armenia should develop according to an open model, be the focus of the interests, aspirations and money of the Armenians.

Okay, that's all clear. But then the Armenian politician clearly went too far into the fantasies of his youth and disconnected from reality.

"I had this vision, I was young, the horizons seemed limitless. I had plans to acquire oil and gas assets. Why couldn't Armenia, being a small state, own oil fields? The UK does not have oil fields, but BP does. The Netherlands has no oil fields, but there is Royal Dutch Shell. France does not have its own oil fields, but there are several large oil companies. According to my vision, Armenia should own shares in the oil fields of other countries and become an international hub. But for this, in 1996 and 1997, we needed peace," the Armenian media quoted Sargsyan as saying.

Okay, calm down. Let's refrain from surprised exclamations for now. Because it gets even more amazing.

Sargsyan said that as Prime Minister, he once spoke in the United States at the invitation of Zbigniew Brzezinski with a report on "Armenia - the Caspian State." As the former president says in an interview with Fox 11, he made it clear that "if someone wants to develop Caspian oil and gas, we are here. Many considered us an obstacle because of the war. But we were the solution to the problem."

Imagine, the Armenian Prime Minister offered Azerbaijani oil to the Americans. Introduced? There is no doubt that in those years it was precisely such crazy dreams that tormented Armenian politicians who were euphoric from their bloody "victory."

Sargsyan claims that if it had not been for his illness in 1997, peace would have been concluded and the proceeds from Caspian oil would have gone to Armenia, because it is a "Caspian state" and has some rights to Azerbaijani resources.

It seems that Armen Sarkissian really got seriously ill in those years, so he missed everything. He missed the "Contract of the Century," the numerous contracts signed by Baku for the development of Caspian fields, the multibillion-dollar investments that flowed into Azerbaijan, and the BTC agreement. Apparently, as Prime Minister and associate of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, he seriously believed that by occupying 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territories, Armenia had seized both the Absheron Peninsula and the Azerbaijani shelf of the Caspian Sea in absentia. All that remained was to sign the peace, and all these riches would flow into the pockets of the Armenians.

Before we get surprised, let's remember "Armenia from sea to sea", let's recall the statements of Armenian figures (who obviously did not study at school) that Azerbaijan owes its oil industry to the Armenians. It only remains to state that the Armenians were also directly involved in the formation of this resource in the Mesozoic era. Thank God, it is impossible to bring dinosaurs as witnesses, otherwise we would not have avoided such discussions.

So, Armen Sarkissian told the Fox 11 audience that in the late 90s, Azerbaijan was ready to sign any peace with Armenia, but he, Sargsyan, fell ill and resigned, so the Armenians could not produce oil in the Caspian Sea. There is no logic, but these are small things.

The most important thing that the ex-president does not take into account is the question: was anyone even going to make peace with the occupier? Ter-Petrosyan suddenly had an epiphany of the future and saw how everything would end for Armenia, so he started talking about peace. But Baku was not going to comfort him and never considered fraternizing with the occupier until the very fact of occupation was eliminated. When the route of the Main Export oil Pipeline was discussed, Baku offered Armenia to lay it through the Armenian territory in exchange for the liberation of the occupied areas, but Yerevan refused. He wanted to have both - foreign lands and income from the transit of foreign oil. As a result, I was left, sorry, without pants.

Armenia has never had a strong negotiating position. It has never been a "Caspian state." By renouncing the occupation and concluding a just peace, it could only become a transit country. This is not the old days for Sargsyan, when Armenians were given preference when selling oil fields in Baku. The ex-president must have read about how rich Armenians were buying up land on Absheron and getting fat on Baku oil. Daydreaming. That's why I told the Americans in 1997 to contact Yerevan about the Caspian fields.

If Americans were more knowledgeable about geography and were aware of what was happening in the South Caucasus, they would be very surprised to hear this...