On October 24, 2024, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the Institute of Oriental Studies of NAS RA and National Defence Research University (MOD RA).

The Memorandum affirms the necessity and importance of expanding scientific and educational cooperation and strengthening collaboration in new research directions. It envisages the implementation of fundamental and applied research on security issues in the South Caucasus, the Near and Middle East, as well as on the political systems of Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The scope of research will also include the armed forces, conceptual frameworks of foreign policy, and strategic, economic, ethnic, and religious dimensions. Moreover, the parties plan to carry out joint informational-analytical work on regional and extra-regional power centers’ interests and roles in the Middle East, key directions of Armenia’s Middle Eastern policy, among other topics. The Memorandum also foresees organizing joint scientific-analytical events.

According to the Memorandum, professional consultations on mutually interesting topics and issues will be conducted, with guaranteed joint access to the parties’ libraries and collections, as well as exchange of materials from international scientific and informational databases.

The cooperation will also extend to joint operational-strategic and informational-analytical research on global and regional conflicts and military actions.

The Memorandum was signed by the Acting Head of the Defense National Research University of the MoD, Deputy for Science and Education, Head of National Strategic Research, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Colonel Tigran Kocharyan, and the Acting Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of NAS RA, PhD, Associate Professor Gohar Iskandaryan. Both parties highly appreciated the expansion of close cooperation between the two scientific research institutions and the implementation of joint fundamental and applied research in their professional fields, noting the significant role of this collaboration in the development of national science.

The signing ceremony was attended by Academician Rouben Safrastyan, Head of the Turkey Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Levon Hovsepyan, and Representative of the Ministry of Defense Serob Sujyan.