YEREVAN, JANUARY 10, ARMENPRESS. The situation in the Middle East during the next few years will not be calm, argues academician Ruben Safrastyan, the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences.

“In my assessment the first phase of the Iran-USA conflict is over. The tactical phase is over, and now the conflict will shift to the strategic phase. Iran has very clearly announced that it will do everything to end the American military presence in the Middle East. This is an important strategic goal for Iran which it has set before itself, a big goal, a goal having truly important consequences. I think there will be no calm in the Middle East during the next one or two years,” Safrastyan said.

On January 8, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps targeted an airbase housing US led coalition troops in Ain al-Assad in Anbar province in western Iraq in response to the US assassination of the IRGC's Quds Forces commander  Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Iran fired more than a dozen of ballistic missiles on the base. The Pentagon confirmed the report but said none of its troops were killed or harmed.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan