Bagheri visited Yerevan for what the Armenian Foreign Ministry described as “regular political consultations” between the two neighboring states. Regional security topped the agenda of his meetings with his Armenian opposite number, Vahan Kostanian, as well as Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
“We noted that it is the regional states that are the guarantors of peace and stability and that the presence of external forces cannot contribute to peace and stability because they pursue different goals,” Bagheri told reporters after the talks. He did not specify those forces.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi similarly spoke out against “the presence of outside forces” in the region when he met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Tehran in November. The remarks followed the first deployment of European Union monitors to Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan.
The EU launched another, more long-term monitoring mission there last month, prompting strong criticism from Russia, Iran’s de facto ally. Moscow accused the EU as well as the United States of using the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to squeeze it out of the South Caucasus. Armenian officials have since tried to ally the Russian fears.
Meeting with Bagheri, Mirzoyan and Kostanian praised the current state of Iranian-Armenian relations.
“We try to make our positions on regional and international security more understandable to each other,” Kostanian said after the talks.
The Iranian diplomat visited Yerevan amid growing tensions in the Karabakh conflict zone. In recent weeks, Armenian officials have accused Azerbaijan of planning another large-scale military attack on Armenia and Karabakh.