Pashinyan unlikely to meet with Trump during US visit – opinion  

The chances that Nikol Pashinyan will meet with Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly's upcoming session are very low indeed - given that the high-profile event offers a platform for the US leader to schedule his agenda according to priorities, the director of Armenian Center for American Studies said on Sunday.

In an interview with Tert.am, Suren Sargsyan noted that Armenia is the United States' 179th partner "on the list of 193 countries". ″That's an important record given especially that Trump is a business-minded politician, he said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is meeting with the US-Armenian community at the Los Angeles Grand Prak on September 22. On September 24, will address the General Assembly’s 74th session.  

Asked what efforts depend on the Armenian authorities now in terms of expanding the bilateral agenda, Sargsyan pointed out to several factors which he said could produce an essentially tremendous impact. ‟The presence of the Armenian community may play an important role here, especially in the pre-election period, but I am not sure effective work is being carried out in that respect. The second important trend may be Armenia's active engagement in peacekeeping activities, the expansion of our troops in the NATO and UN peacekeeping missions. That certainly would balance our engagement in Syria. Cooperation could be possible also over the refugee issue given that Armenia hosted refugees from Syria - without receiving any aid or tangible assistance from international organizations. Yes, they are ethnic Armenians, but Turkey, on the other hand. has given home to ethnic Turks on its territory too, receiving a €4 billion worth assistance from the European Union. And they are now blackmaling the EU, saying that they want no more refugees ... That too, could be an additional stimulus,″ Sargsyan added.

Addressing the expectations from Pashinyan's UN address, the analyst stressed the importance of focus on foreign policy priorities. ″I think it is now time for him to introduce the reforms in Armenia. If there are things that could be presented – such as Armenia's foreign policy agenda and security challenges – these could be the key accentuations that the prime minister should make in his speech,″ he added.