Armenian and Iranian Defense Ministers Discuss Regional Security Issues

YEREVAN — Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh met with his Armenian counterpart Suren Papikian on Tuesday during an official visit to Yerevan that came one month after a first-ever joint military exercise held by the two neighboring states.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said they discussed bilateral relations and regional security but gave no further details.

“The ministers highly appraised the level of cooperation between the two countries in the field of defense,” it said in a short statement.

“Iran and Armenia have a strong will to improve relations,” the Iranian Mehr news agency quoted Nasirzadeh as saying on his arrival in the Armenian capital earlier in the day.

Papikian paid an official visit to Tehran in March 2024. His press office reported at the time that he and then Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani reached “a number of understandings on issues of mutual interest.”

The Armenian army and Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), held the joint exercise along the Armenian-Iranian border last month. They simulated a joint operation against imaginary “terrorist groups” attacking the border crossings. A top IRGC general stressed the “strategic importance” of the border for Tehran.