The Armenian Defense Ministry said they discussed bilateral relations and regional security but gave no further details.
“The ministers highly appraised the level of cooperation between the two countries in the field of defense,” it said in a short statement.
“Iran and Armenia have a strong will to improve relations,” the Iranian Mehr news agency quoted Nasirzadeh as saying on his arrival in the Armenian capital earlier in the day.
Papikian paid an official visit to Tehran in March 2024. His press office reported at the time that he and then Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani reached “a number of understandings on issues of mutual interest.”
The Armenian army and Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), held the joint exercise along the Armenian-Iranian border last month. They simulated a joint operation against imaginary “terrorist groups” attacking the border crossings. A top IRGC general stressed the “strategic importance” of the border for Tehran.
The drill took place amid what many in Armenia see as a lingering risk of an Azerbaijani invasion aimed at opening a land corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave through Syunik, the only Armenian province bordering Iran. Earlier this year, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev renewed his threats to forcibly open such a corridor also sought by Turkey.
Iran has repeatedly warned Azerbaijan as well as Turkey against attempting to strip it of the common border or direct transport links with Armenia.
Incidentally, the Azerbaijani and Iranian militaries began on Sunday a joint exercise in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh.