Former Heritage Party MP Stepan Safaryan sounded a note of suspicion when commenting on the recent one day visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Armenia.

“This is the second visit of a U.S. Secretary of State to Armenia since 2010. Before that it none did. We have to ask ourselves whether the U.S. is interested in us or our geographic position.”

Safaryan added that on this point Armenia presents a strategic importance in any Iran related matter.

“Azerbaijan has recently been trying to resolve a psychological problem, i.e. to show its people that the country is able to do things regionally and that it has power,” Safaryan said at a press conference today.

The Heritage Party secretary said that Azerbaijan has also trying to gauge the reaction of the international community to its recent military adventures.

Safaryan is convinced that the systematic Armenian responses to Azerbaijani military moves (killing 5 of their soldiers to our 3 killed) might break their resolve but that it’s not a solution.

It’s not enough, he said, to answer military adventurism with military moves and that what is needed is to craft a definite geo-political response strategy and to utilize all possible international levers.

Narek Aleksanyan

Safaryan concluded that if the presence of Hillary Clinton in the region cannot serve to reign in the actions of Baku, then it means that either Ilham Aliyev doesn’t give a damn about the West or that the West itself isn’t all that concerned about how the sides to the conflict will emerge as a result against the backdrop of developments in the wider Middle East picture.