Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has appointed former Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan to the post of Secretary of the Security Council, replacing Armen Grigoryan, according to decrees published on the government’s website on Thursday.

Grigoryan, who had served as Security Council Secretary since May 2018, said goodbye to his colleagues at a cabinet meeting.

He was one of the longest-serving officials in Pashinyan’s government. During his tenure as Security Council Secretary, he helped to establish Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service in 2023. He became one of Pashinyan’s closest advisers on security and foreign policy in the aftermath of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Throughout his eight years as Security Council Secretary, he also served as one of Armenia’s key negotiators and public voices on normalisation with Azerbaijan. Grigoryan took part in US-brokered negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and called for institutionalising the peace between the two countries.

Speaking at the post-meeting briefing, Pashinyan said he had offered Grigoryan a position on his staff, but Grigoryan chose to step back and rest instead.

‘It’s not that I’ve been dissatisfied with Armen Grigoryan’s work, but I am also not so satisfied with my own work that I consider it perfect’, said Pashinyan.

Simonyan’s appointment follows his departure from parliament earlier this year. At the end of June, the ruling Civil Contract party voted anonymously to back Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan as its candidate for new parliamentary speaker, passing over both Simonyan and Deputy Speaker Hayk Konjoryan. Parliament later elected Rubinyan as its new speaker.

After losing his party’s backing, Simonyan, who held the parliamentary speaker’s role for five years and played a prominent part in the election campaign, announced that he would not be taking up his parliamentary mandate. He said he would prefer to remain speaker but respects the party’s decision, adding that this would give him a chance to rest and focus on his personal life.