In a short statement on the meeting, Pashinian’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 Pashinian’s face-to-face conversations with foreign officials.
CIA Director William Burns paid a surprise visit to Armenia in July 2022. He held talks with Pashinian and Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council. Two months later, Grigorian 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, Grigorian met with thechief of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, Richard Moore, in London. A few days later, Moore flew to Yerevan to for talks with Pashinian. The two men met again in February this year on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich.
Armenia’s relationship with Russia has deteriorated significantly in recent years, with Pashinian’s government saying that Moscow is not honoring its security commitments to Yerevan and seeking closer ties with the West in what it calls a “diversification” of Armenian foreign policy.
Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh last September only added to the tensions between the two longtime allies. Moscow has since repeatedly accused Pashinian of “destroying” Russian-Armenian relations.
