Washington religious event only pretext for Armenian premier`s visit  to USA 

ArmInfo. The main goal of the Armenian Prime Minister's visit to the United States is to probe the new American administration's positions on the Armenian- Azerbaijani process, Armenian-Turkish relations and bilateral ties.  Americanist Suren Sargsyan writes about this on his Facebook account. 

He recalled that Pashinyan will be in Washington from February 3 to  7. The reason for the visit was participation in the International  Summit on Religious Freedom and National Prayer. These events are  held every year in Washington. Formally, this served as the basis for  Pashinyan's visit to Washington, which began on February 3.

"However, I think that the real purpose of the Prime Minister's visit  is not to participate in these events, since everyone knows that  Pashinyan is not particularly interested in faith and religion.  Moreover, I was surprised that the visit was also attended by Member  of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Arsen Torosyan,  who, as far as I know, is also not a religious person. This means  that the purpose of his visit is different, and religious events are  just a pretext. I think that the real reasons for the visit are  different. In particular, it is extremely important for Pashinyan to  understand in what direction Trump's foreign policy will develop. Can  he count on US support, and will the Trump administration provide the  same economic, financial and political support that the Biden  administration provided to Pashinyan? It is also important for  Yerevan to know the position of this administration on the  Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation package, which is of vital  importance to Pashinyan. It needs to understand whether the Trump  team is ready to continue mediating in the negotiations on a peace  treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan," the political scientist  noted.

He added that the Prime Minister needs to understand whether the new  US administration is interested in the Crossroads of the World  project initiated by the Armenian government and to what extent it is  ready to support its implementation. "He will try to find out whether  the Americans will continue to work with Turkey as a mediator to  promote the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. It is also  important for him to know what Trump's policy will be towards Iran  and Russia in order to understand how much room he will have to  maneuver in relations with these countries or how much he will be  able to distance himself from them. He will try to understand to what  extent the administration is interested in the Armenian- American  strategic partnership in general and in US priorities in particular.  Donald Trump, the Secretary of State, the President's National  Security Advisor, the Minister of Defense and the regional heads of  various government agencies can best answer these questions. Let's  see which of them Pashinyan will meet with," the expert noted.

He noted that the Armenian authorities were confident of the  Democrats' victory in the elections, and this is one of the reasons  for organizing this unexpected visit.