TEHRAN – Iran and Armenia on Monday discussed avenues for developing ties especially in the energy and transport sectors.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan arrived in Tehran on Monday at the head of a high-ranking economic and political delegation.
“Bilateral relations should be boosted in different fields including trade, energy, and transportation,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a joint meeting of senior delegations from Iran and Armenia held in the presidential office.
Ahmadinejad said Tehran considers developing ties with Armenian as a foreign policy priority and called for regional and international cooperation with Yerevan.
“The growing cooperation between Tehran and Yerevan must be expanded in all areas,” the two presidents stressed in their private meeting in which they also discussed the most important regional and international issues.
The two presidents insisted that regional and international developments have made close cooperation between Iran and Armenia imperative.
At a press conference on Saturday in Yerevan, Sargsyan stated that the global economic crisis will not affect the implementation of Tehran-Yerevan joint ventures.
“Yerevan places paramount importance on proposed projects and those underway, such as the oil pipeline, the joint railway, and the hydroelectric power plant,” Sargsyan said.
Iran and Armenia reached a primary agreement in 2007 on the construction of a 300-kilometer oil pipeline from the Iranian city of Tabriz to the Armenian border city of Meghri.
The two countries also reached an agreement in Yerevan on April 4, 2009 to establish a railway that would connect the two countries to the Black Sea as a strategic transit route.
The 470-kilometer railway would take five years to build and cost up to $1.2 billion to complete.
The two countries have also agreed to build a hydroelectric power station on the border Aras River that will produce 800 million kilowatts of electricity per annum