Russian president, Armenian PM discuss Armenian NPP, bilateral relations

MOSCOW. Sept 26 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have discussed the operations of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and various aspects of bilateral relations.

"Thank you for accepting our invitation and for coming to the international event on the development of the nuclear power industry. It is natural because a nuclear power plant has long been functioning in Armenia. As you yourself said at the forum, it supplies 30% of electricity in the country. It is quite a serious figure, 30%, it means that the nuclear power plant accounts for one-third of the entire electricity output," Putin said when greeting Pashinyan.

Rosatom "is working to extend the service life of this NPP," Putin said.

"Therefore, your presence at the forum is quite logical of course," he said.

On the whole, relations between Russia and Armenia "are developing steadily, well," Putin said.

"The bilateral trade of nearly $11 billion is 34% of Armenia's foreign trade. According to our statistics, Armenian-Russian trade that totaled $11.7 billion in 2024 is an all-time high. Relations are also developing in other areas," Putin said, adding that there is always something to discuss with Armenian partners.

Pashinyan, in turn, thanked the Russian side for the invitation to the World Atomic Week forum.

"Today, we have learned a lot of new things about nuclear technologies. Thank you for sharing. Of course, the role of nuclear power has been growing for a long time and nuclear energy is already considered at the global level as environmentally friendly energy," Pashinyan said.

Nuclear power is highly important to Armenia, he said.

"You were right to note that we closely cooperate with the Russian Federation and are working to extend the service life of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant until 2036. We are now working and looking for small modular NPP designs that will be convenient for Armenia, and we are certainly engaged in a very active dialogue on this issue with the Russian Federation," Pashinyan said, adding that Armenia is actively cooperating with Rosatom.

Pashinyan said relations between the countries "have been developing systematically."

"It's true that there has been a certain decline this year, and it is due to some global processes, but I think that we need to take relevant steps to address this issue in order to enable our mutual trade to continue to grow, continue to grow at the pace seen in 2023-2024," he said.