Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan convened a meeting of Armenia’s top leaders to assess U.S.-Iran tensions

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday said the developments in the region were “worrying” referring to escalating tensions between the United States and Iran that resulted from the killing by the U.S. of Iran’s top military leader and the subsequent Tehran-led attack on U.S. military bases in Iraq on Tuesday.

“Our position remains the same: Armenia will not be embroiled into anti-Iranian actions, Armenia will not be embroiled in anti-American actions and our hope and call to our friendly Iran and the U.S. is to immediately initiate negotiations to not allow further aggravation of the situation,” Pashinyan told Armenia’s top leaders during a meeting he convened on Wednesday to assess the developing situation and follow up on discussions that were held on Friday following the killing of the Iranian military leader, Major General Qassem Suleimani.

Attending the meeting were Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan; Armenian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Artak Davtyan; Armenia’s Police Chief Arman Sargsyan; National Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan; National Security Service head Eduard Martirosyan; Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan; and Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan.

National Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan

On Tuesday, Grigoryan, the National Security Secretary, told reporters that Armenia was prepared for any scenario as the standoff between the Washington and Tehran continues, adding, however, the he believed the situation was de-escalating.

“We are always ready for the worst,” said Grigoryan. “Overall I can say that we have implemented major mechanisms during both the Syrian and Iranian crises. We can say that our institutional capabilities have increased.”

“We have been able to develop both an evacuation plan and a crisis reaction plan, which I believe is a very important progress for our administration system. To some extent, our institutional capacities have become stronger from these two crises, and we better know what we are going to do,” explained Grigoryan. “We are ready for any option to help for the conflict to be maximally mitigated.”