In a one-sentence statement on the meeting, Pashinian’s press office said nothing about the agenda or other details of their conversation in the southern German city.
Moore, who runs the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) also known as MI6, previously met with Pashinian during a surprise visit to Yerevan in December 2022. The Armenian government said at the time that they discussed “processes taking place in the South Caucasus.”
The British spy chief flew to the Armenian capital four days after meeting with Armen Grigorian, the pro-Western secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, in London. Shortly after that visit, Pashinian’s government pushed through the parliament a bill on the creation of an Armenian foreign intelligence service.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns visited Armenia and held talks with Pashinian in July 2022. Few details of those talks were made public.
Russian-Armenian relations have steadily deteriorated in recent years, with Yerevan accusing Moscow of not honoring security commitments and saying that it has to “diversify” Armenia’s foreign and security 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.