PM Pashinyan and CIA Deputy Director Discuss International, Regional Issues

YEREVAN — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with the deputy director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, David Cohen, in Yerevan on Tuesday.

In a short statement on the meeting, Pashinyan’s press office said they discussed U.S.-Armenian relations and “issues pertaining to the international agenda.” It did not elaborate.

Nor did the office release any photographs of the meeting, in contrast with its usual press releases on Pashinyan’s face-to-face conversations with foreign officials. Cohen also had a meeting with Secretary of Armenian Security Council Armen Grigoryan.

CIA Director William Burns paid a surprise visit to Armenia in July 2022. He held talks with PM Pashinyan and Armen Grigoryan. Two months later, Grigoryan visited the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia during a trip to the United States. No details of those talks were made public.

In December 2022, Grigoryan met with the chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, Richard Moore, in London. A few days later, Moore flew to Yerevan for talks with Pashinyan. The two men met again in February this year on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich.