Iran’s Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar is due to visit Yerevan in mid-January. According to Iranian news agency ISNA, the goal of the Iranian official’s visit is to discuss security issues. The visit will take place against the backdrop of an unprecedented escalation of tensions between Iran and the West.

On December 24 Armenia was visited by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is currently on a tour in Latin America. At the same time U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland called Ahmadinejad’s Latin American tour a desperate step to find new allies. No statements about ‘allies’ were made from Washington after the Iranian president’s visit to Armenia.

Meanwhile, even the Christmas holiday did not ease the escalation of the situation around Iran. A military strike by the United States can destroy Iran’s entire nuclear program, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Armed Forces, Gen. Martin Dempsey stated on Sunday. “Iran has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz for a period of time, but the U.S. would take action to reopen it,” warned the general.

Iran’s threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, which is a gateway about a third of the world’s oil exports, was a reaction to the West’s threat of imposing an embargo on oil exports from Iran. The decision to impose an oil embargo may be made as early as January 30 when the foreign ministers of European Union countries meet.

Iran conducted military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz last month. In response, the Israeli military are preparing to conduct large-scale exercises of missile defense forces in cooperation with the U.S. Army, the Israeli military command announced last week.

In this view, the factor of Armenia, which shares a 40-kilometer border with Iran in Meghri (plus a 100-kilometer border south of Karabakh controlled by ethnic Armenian troops), becomes particularly significant. It is obvious that Armenia, just as its ally Russia, will not side with the West in the event of possible military operations. Iran needed to obtain such guarantees from Yerevan, and it, apparently, got those. “It is impossible to change the map of Armenia and Iran,” Ahmadenijad said while in Yerevan. Armenian analysts quickly assumed that the matter indirectly concerns the recognition of the present territory of Karabakh as well.

At the same time, reports emerged about a large Armenian-Iranian project. “In 2011, at last, the Armenian-Iranian formula ‘electricity in exchange for gas’ has started to work. It is not known at what hour and on what day the sides launched this project, since no high-profile statements on this account were made, let alone any ribbon-cutting ceremonies. But the fact is that Armenia has already exported about 2 billion kw/h of electricity, which even exceeds the volume of diamond exports,” reported News.am.

Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that relations between Iran and Azerbaijan have been exacerbating. According to media speculations, the recent visit to Iran by Ali Hasanov, head of the Public-Political Department of the Azerbaijani president’s administration, undertaken in a bid to relieve tensions, brought no result. As the most recent statements by Iran’s senior clerics suggest, the Islamic Republic does not intend to ease its pressure on Azerbaijan this year either.