The Armenian Foreign Ministry said the embassy resumed its activities along with its consular section that “returned to its normal regime.”
“Appointments for citizens of Armenia have already been organized today,” it said in a statement.
The ministry added that the Armenian consulate in Aleppo will also be reopened soon. The consulate was shut down shortly before Syria’s second largest city fell late last month to the rebels dominated by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist militant group. Both diplomatic missions had functioned throughout the Syrian civil war.
In what was official Yerevan’s first reaction to the regime change in Syria, the Foreign Ministry posted a separate statement on X saying: “We stand firmly by the friendly Syrian people in this decisive moment for their history and support the inclusive and peaceful political transition process, with strong belief that tolerance and national unity are the sole way to stability and peace in Syria and the entire region.”
Much of the work of the Armenian diplomatic missions in Syria is related to the country’s ethnic Armenian community that had an estimated 80,000 members until the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. The once thriving community has been in limbo since the start of the lighting rebel offensive.
A drone view shows people celebrating in Aleppo after rebel fighters ousted Syria's Bashar al-Assad, December 13, 2024.
The plight of between 10,000 and 15,000 Syrian Armenians believed to remain in Aleppo has been of particular concern. Some of them managed to flee the city ahead of the rebel takeover. They have mostly returned home in recent days, according to Zarmig Boghigian, the editor of the local Armenian newspaper Kantsasar.
“The situation with security in the city is good, but people are concerned,” Boghigian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “The economic situation is bad and uncertainty persists. Prices go up and down. So it’s not clear what’s going to happen.”
She said that during their meetings with community leaders in Aleppo, Damascus and other cities the new HTS-led authorities gave the Syrian Armenians security guarantees, telling them to “continue your lives as usual and reopen your churches.” Armenian schools across the country reopened on Monday, added Boghigian.
A group of Syrian Armenians had been scheduled to fly to Armenia on a direct flight from Damascus on November 14. The flight was cancelled because of the continuing closure of Syria’s airports. Boghigian said that community members willing to take refuge in Armenia are now free to do so via neighboring Lebanon.