YEREVAN. - It’s pleasant that the U.S. establishment has finally formed skepticism with regard to Azerbaijan. Gagik Harutyunyan,Head of the Noravank Scientific Research Center, told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am, referring to the possibility of the U.S. ban on issuing visas to the Azerbaijani top officials.

According to him, this should definitely be welcomed. “I think they are even a little late,” Harutyunyan said.

Responding to the question on whether these sanctions will be imposed, he said: “Even if these sanctions are imposed with respect to individuals, this won’t be a very big tragedy for Azerbaijan. I don’t think they will change their geopolitical stances. And if we notice such geopolitical and strategic changes particularly with regard to the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, this can be definitely welcomed.”

Referring to the question on why the U.S. came up with such an initiative right now, the political analyst stressed that he can only think of hypotheses. “I think the U.S. and Russia have entered into a rivalry for a larger role in the “large” Middle East. This is only one hypothesis. Certain geopolitical rivalry has started, which may also contain positive elements particularly for Armenia,” Harutyunyan said.

US Representative Chris Smith (Republican-New Jersey) today introduced a bill that would deny US visas to top Azerbaijani officials due to what he calls Baku’s “appalling human rights violations.”