Managing-Director of Iran’s Electricity Network Management Company Mirfattah Fattah Qarahbaq said that the massive blackout in Armenia last week was not the result of a disconnection from Iran’s power grid.

“The power outage in Armenia was related to the internal problems of the country’s power network and seemed to have been caused by the activation of frequency protection relays which actually shouldn’t have been activated,” Fattah Qarahbaq told Fars News Agency.

Stressing that the Iranian and Armenian power networks are connected, he said, “At present, Iran and Armenia’s power grids are synchronous and we have 150mw energy exchange with that country based on our agreement (which was inked between the two countries long ago).”

Armenia suffered a power outage last weekend as a result of what the authorities in Yerevan claimed a brief disruption in electricity supplies from neighboring Iran. The entire Armenian capital and some other parts of the country were abruptly left without electricity for more than two hours on Saturday, Nov 2 morning. The emergency deactivated traffic lights and the city’s underground transport system were brought to a halt, leaving hundreds of commuters stranded in its tunnels. They all were evacuated by the national Rescue Service before power supplies were restored.

The Armenian Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources claimed that the blackout occurred due to “technical problems” in imports of electricity from Iran. “Our energy system was automatically disconnected from the Iranian system,” the ministry spokeswoman, Lusine Harutyunyan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.

Yet, Harutyunyan said that Energy Minister Armen Movsisyan set up an ad hoc commission that will investigate the precise causes of the disruption. Movsisyan told reporters on Monday that the commission will also discuss how to prevent such emergencies in the future.