Profile: Iran's new ambassador to Armenia - Mehdi Sobhani

The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced on March 30 that it would appoint Mehdi Sobhani as the new envoy to Armenia. The appointment comes as Iran and Armenia have been developing bilateral ties amid growing tensions with Azerbaijan. 

In a statement, the ministry said that its current Ambassador to Syria, Sobhani, will be appointed Ambassador to Armenia after completing his mission.

Iran’s current Ambassador to Armenia Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri was appointed in 2019 and assumed his mission in early 2020.

Key facts

Iran appointed Sobhani as Iran's new ambassador to Syria on May 9, 2021. Later that month, he inaugurated Tehran's new consulate in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. Sobhani described the opening of the consulate as a sign of "the strategic, deep, historic and developing relations” with Syria. 

Sobhani has previously served as Iran's consul general in Pakistan, deputy head of West Asia Affairs at the foreign ministry and deputy ambassador in Turkmenistan and Ukraine.

Earlier, he took the post of Director General of the Office of Strategic Planning and Monitoring of the foreign ministry.

What others say

Sobhani is described by the Iranian foreign ministry as an experienced diplomat. According to the ministry, with the increasing strength of Tehran-Yerevan relations, Sobhani would "promote more and protect and secure the interests of our dear country and all neighbours in this very sensitive area."

Armenian geopolitical strategist and regional security expert, Varuzhan Geghamyan, hailed Iran’s pick as its new ambassador to Armenia.

He recalled that in 2022 Iran appointed Morteza Abedin Varamin, who served in Yemen, as its consul-general to Armenia's Syunik Province, saying that these appointments are “clear signs of Armenia's & particularly Syunik's priority for Iran,” the expert stressed.

In a statement released on April 1, Iran's embassy in Armenia rejected “claims” that the appointment of Sobhani was a move meant to antagonise Baku due to Sobhani's links to the military.

"The embassy again confirms the baselessness of claims about Mr. Sobhani's military background," the statement said, adding that like his predecessor, the new ambassador was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war.

According to Kasra Aarabi, Iran Programme Lead for the Tony Blair Institute, Sobhani's former post in Syria was "one of the most securitised roles due to close contact with Hezbollah", and that his appointment showed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wanting to further escalate tensions with Baku.

The spokesman for the Azerbaijan National Resistance Organisation, Majid Javadi, called the appointment the continuation of "bellicose actions" against Azerbaijan, and one of the most serious links in this chain, saying that "Mehdi Sobhani's speciality is more than an embassy, war coordination and management".

“It seems that the Iranian regime is involved in a melancholic delusion and thinks that it can occupy Azerbaijan in a short period of time,” he added.