Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 14
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
If a person has a lot of money, he or she can buy many things, including the right to commit a crime, even at an international level.
Apparently, an owner of one of Russia's largest industrial and construction national holdings is guided by such a principle.
Tashir Group of Companies, owned by Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, is now reportedly amid negotiations to purchase the electric network of Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Zhamanak (Time) newspaper reported, citing its own sources.
The deal, if completed, will thus make the company the manager of the electric networks in Armenia and the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the newspaper.
Tashir Group of Companies previously acquired "Electric Networks of Armenia" in 2015 following the protests related to the electricity tariffs’ hike.
However, now, President of the Tashir Group of Companies Samvel Karapetyan has decided to violate all international laws and acquire power grids in the territory occupied by Armenia.
In other words, the Armenian businessman, who made his fortune by selling enamel wash basins, has decided to buy the electrical transmission networks belonging to Azerbaijan from thieves and occupants. It is clear that Karapetyan would not have made his fortune if he had obeyed the law.
However, it is possible to make many people to turn a blind eye to the violations of the law by knowing the individuals who should be brought around and the organizations which should be provided with another charitable tranche.
Karapetyan is well-known for investing in the charity and this is appreciated by the country’s authorities.
Moreover, Karapetyan regularly gets lucrative contracts from the state agencies as well.
So, the companies, having relations with Samvel Karapetyan’s Tashir group, received the state contracts worth more than $800 million in 2015, The Moscow Post reported.
By the way, the companies affiliated with Tashir group received most of state contracts from Gazprom company in 2015, in one word – the king of the state order.
Karapetyan intends to illegally purchase the electrical transmission networks of the Azerbaijani region and this is not his first crime.
He prefers to keep abreast of Armenian oligarchic policy. It is an interesting fact that one of the partners of Samvel Karapetyan is Karen Karapetyan who is expected to head the Armenian government soon.
Karapetyan spares no expense to support the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Yerevan.
Recently, after Yerevan’s fiasco during the counterattack of Azerbaijani armed forces on the line of contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani armies, Karapetyan decided to give encouragement to the separatists and war criminals.
“Tashir” Charity Foundation led by him allocated $500,000 to the de facto regime in Nagorno-Karabakh and $2,000 to the families of each killed serviceman in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
It is not big money for the life of young people who died for foreign lands and for the ambitions of their masters, however, the gesture itself is unambiguous.
Naturally, helping separatists, criminals and occupiers is a private business and one can’t raise an objection if this money is transferred by a charity foundation and as a donation.
But Russian company’s official purchasing electricity networks on Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory is an international crime for which even a company named by Forbes as ‘King of public procurement’, should be held responsible.
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Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency's Russian News Service