Armenia’s Diplomatic Footprint

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Armenia’s diplomatic presence globally offers a clear picture of its foreign policy goals and challenges. As a small state, it has attempted to build relationships to strengthen its security, expand economic ties, and amplify its voice internationally. Looking at the country’s diplomatic footprint helps us understand how Armenia is positioning itself and its foreign policy priorities. It currently maintains embassies in 44 countries. 

Armenia has established formal diplomatic ties with the vast majority of the world’s 193 sovereign countries (as defined by full UN membership). The three notable exceptions are its eastern and western neighbors, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and their common ally Pakistan. Until last November, Armenia had no official relations with Saudi Arabia. Most other countries with which it has no diplomatic ties are in the Pacific and Africa (for example South Sudan and Papua New Guinea).

Chronology

Upon EVN Report’s request, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry provided the dates for the establishment of each embassy. Just over half of Armenia’s embassies, 23, were established within the first five years of independence (1992–1996), during the presidency of Levon Ter-Petrosyan. The presidency of Robert Kocharyan added five embassies between 1998 and 2002. His successor, Serzh Sargsyan, was far more active in this regard. Armenia set up embassies in 12 countries between 2010 and 2014, including five in EU member states.

Since Nikol Pashinyan’s rise to power in 2018, Armenia has established diplomatic missions in four countries so far–Qatar (2019), Ethiopia and Israel (2020), and Uruguay (2024). Armenia also opened a diplomatic office (representation) in Luxembourg earlier this year. Three additional embassies, in South Korea, Cyprus, and Hungary have been officially announced. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stated in November 2024 that embassies in Hungary and Cyprus would be established in the “coming months”.

Geography

Of Armenia’s 44 embassies, 18 or 40% are located in Europe and North America. Fourteen are in EU member states, with the remaining four in the UK, Switzerland, the United States, and Canada. As noted above, Armenia is looking to set up embassies in Cyprus and Hungary, which will increase Armenia’s embassy presence to 16 out of 27 EU members. Additionally, Yerevan has diplomatic representation accredited to the Holy See (Vatican).

Two other significant groups stand out: the Middle East and the former Soviet states. Among the former “sister republics” of the USSR, Armenia has embassies in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, its northern neighbor Georgia, and two in Central Asia (Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan).

The Middle Eastern group comprises embassies in seven Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar), as well as in Armenia’s southern neighbor Iran and in Israel. As part of the government’s ongoing efforts to expand diplomatic and economic partners, Armenia has intensified its ties with the Arab world in recent years, including by establishing formal ties with Saudi Arabia and recognizing Palestine.

Besides Armenia’s embassy in Ethiopia, the sole in Sub-Saharan Africa, the rest are all located in Asia and Latin America. In Asia, Armenia maintains diplomatic missions in five countries: China, India, Japan, Indonesia, and Vietnam with plans to add South Korea to the list. In Latin America, Armenian embassies are found in the three largest economies—Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina—as well as in tiny Uruguay, which has a well-established Armenian community.

Consulates

Additionally, Armenia operates 12 career consulates across eight countries. Unsurprisingly, Russia, home to the largest Armenian diaspora, hosts the largest number of Armenian consulates, with four located in Saint Petersburg (in the north), Novosibirsk (in Siberia), and two in the south—Rostov and Sochi. In late 2022, Yerevan announced plans to open consulates in Russia’s Vladikavkaz, near the Georgian border, to better address the recurring logistic issues, such as severe congestion and weather-related disruptions, at the Upper Lars checkpoint. It is the sole land connection between Armenia and its key trading partner Russia via Georgian territory.

France, with its sizable Armenian community, hosts two consulates: one in Marseille and another in Lyon. Armenia also maintains consulates in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi, Aleppo in Syria, Ukraine’s Odessa, Dubai, and Los Angeles, home to the largest Armenian community in the United States. To reciprocate Iran’s consulate in Kapan, set up in October 2022, Armenia plans to establish its consulate in Tabriz, northern Iran.

Armenia has far more honorary consulates—a total of 52, including in relatively remote countries such as Guatemala, and Mongolia. The country with the largest number is Germany, with six, followed by Russia and the U.S. with four each, and Poland and Ukraine with three each. Unlike career consulates, these are staffed not by diplomats employed full-time, but by local individuals serving part-time to represent Armenia.

Staff Size

Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to disclose the staff size of each embassy by referring to an April 2021 decree by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which states that it is “not subject to publication.”

The websites of many embassies contain sections entitled “structure”, which lists its staff. For example, the Armenian embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia is made up of nine diplomatic personnel: ambassador, deputy chief of mission, four counselors, first secretary/consul, third secretary, and military attaché. This is likely one of the larger Armenian diplomatic missions globally.

Armenia’s embassy in Tehran, Iran, the only other neighbor with diplomatic ties, has a staff of seven diplomatic personnel: ambassador, commercial attaché, military attaché, consul, embassy counselor, first secretary, and an unspecified attaché.

Armenia’s embassy in India has a staff of five with the embassies in Ukraine, Greece, and Canada each having diplomatic personnel of four.

The websites of embassies in key countries, such as France, the U.S., and Russia do not contain information about the size of the diplomatic staff. The embassy in Beijing lists three sections (political, economic, and consular) and office of military attaché without listing the personnel.

With this kind of incomplete data, it is impossible to rank Armenia’s diplomatic missions by size, which would have been a valuable indicator of the depth of Armenia’s diplomatic relationships.

Military Attachés

Armenia’s MFA also refused to provide the list of embassies where Armenia has military and/or commercial attachés, explaining that it falls outside its jurisdiction. Typical of the Armenian bureaucracy, Armenia’s Defense Ministry in turn referred to the MFA website for the full list of military attachés. But the MFA website does not have the complete list posted anywhere.

According to the data gathered from open sources, Armenia has military attachés in at least 14 countries. The dates when ten of these posts were established is definitely known from either media publications or government records, but it was not possible to track down when Armenia’s military attachés in the other four (Russia, Iran, Georgia, Greece) were set up. Armenia may have first appointed defense attachés in these countries in the 1990s, but the first record of one in Athens, for instance, dates to 2003.

Of the other ten countries with definite dates, two have had Armenian military attachés from the late 1990s. These are the embassies in Washington, which has had a military attaché since 1998, and the one in Beijing—since 1999. In 2010, Armenia appointed a military attaché in its embassy to Germany, and to France and Belarus in 2012.

Yerevan added defense attachés to its diplomatic missions to Kazakhstan and Lebanon in 2018, Ukraine in 2019, India in 2023, and the UK in 2024. This year, military attachés in Germany and Kazakhstan were assigned to cover Czechia and Kyrgyzstan, respectively. This is part of Armenia’s ongoing efforts to diversify its defense partners, with India having emerged as a key partner alongside multiple Western countries.

Armenia additionally has military representatives and/or attachés in its missions to at least four organizations. The mission to NATO has three military posts: defense adviser, military representative, and representative to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). The first was established back in 2004, while the other two earlier this year by a February government decree.

Armenia’s missions to the UN and CSTO have had defense representatives since 2012, although Armenia’s membership to the latter is effectively frozen. The government decree from this February established the post of military attaché at Armenia’s mission to the OSCE.

International Organizations

According to the MFA website, Armenia has permanent representations in 24 international organizations. Its mission at the UN, headquartered in New York with a staff of seven, is likely the largest. At the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Armenia maintains a staff of five.

Armenia is represented at the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in Vienna by its ambassador to Austria and the ambassador to Belgium is concurrently head of mission of Armenia to the EU, headquartered in Brussels. While the ambassador and Head of Mission are the same person, the mission to the EU has a staff of five compared to three in the embassy to Belgium.

Armenia has separate permanent representatives to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) in Istanbul. The Armenian diplomat at the latter has traditionally played a role in the normalization efforts with Turkey, with which Armenia has no formal diplomatic relations.

Armenia’s representative at UNESCO also serves as the Prime Minister’s personal representative at the Francophonie, both headquartered in Paris. Armenia’s ambassador to Egypt represents Armenia at the Cairo-based Arab League, where Armenia holds an observer status.

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