Iran remains committed to deepening its relations with neighboring Armenia, President Hassan Rouhani said in a phone conversation with the country’s new Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan late on Sunday. Rouhani congratulated Pashinyan on his parliamentary election as prime minister on May 8.
“We are happy that the wish and will of people has been met peacefully,” he said, in an apparent reference to the recent dramatic events in the South Caucasus state, his official website reported.
In a key development in the ex-Soviet republic, Armenia's parliament elected opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan as prime minister on May 8, capping a peaceful revolution driven by weeks of mass protests against corruption that had plunged the country into political crisis and forced his predecessor out.
Expansion of Ties
“Iran and Armenia can expand cooperation in various commercial, economic, agricultural and other fields of mutual interest,” Rouhani said.
A statement by Pashinyan’s press office said the two men agreed on the need to “further deepen mutually beneficial partnership in all areas” and implement bilateral commercial projects mainly relating to energy. The new premier called for increase in Iranian investment in his country. “We intend to seriously examine and eliminate all existing obstacles to such investments,” he said.
“Our objective is to significantly step up economic relations with Iran because I think the development of relations stems from the interests of both Iran and Armenia,” Pashinyan told Iranian journalists in Yerevan earlier on Sunday.
