Belarus summons Armenia’s Chargé d’Affaires over ‘unfriendly actions’ by Yerevan
Belarus has summoned Armenia’s Chargé d’Affaires Artur Sargsyan over what it claimed were ‘unfriendly actions’ from Yerevan. While the Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not specify what exactly the actions were, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ruslan Varankov had days earlier sharply criticised remarks made by Armenian Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan in which he appeared to refer to Belarus as a ‘peripheral province’ of Russia.
It was the latest spat in a yearslong diplomatic conflict between the two countries.
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry told the state-run media outlet Belta on Tuesday that a ‘strong protest was lodged’ with Sargsyan, and ‘corresponding note was handed over in connection with the recent unfriendly actions by the Armenian side’.
Days earlier, Simonyan had said ‘Armenia should not become a [province] and be governed the way Belarus is’.
In response, Varankov said, ‘the statements by the speaker of the Armenian Parliament are nothing more than electioneering populism and a desperate attempt to distract voters from the country’s dire domestic problems’.
‘With poverty topping 40%, unemployment soaring, and entire regions stagnating, it is easiest to designate an external adversary and resort to offensive labels. This cynical approach is regrettable’, Varankov said. Armenian government statistics have indeed indicated that those living under the ‘upper poverty line’ at ֏64,200 ($175) per month is at 40.2%, although it is at 21.7% on the average level.
Varankov concluded by saying ‘Belarusians and Armenians are bound by strong historical ties, and we believe that sooner or later Armenia’s leadership will come back to its senses and return to constructive dialogue with our country, so that our nations may once again become truly friendly and strategic partners’.
In turn, Simonyan also responded to the summons by defending his own remarks.
‘I believe it is the disrespectful attitude toward Armenia, a partner in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), and toward Armenian statehood that damages relations’, Simonyan said on Wednesday.
‘For Armenia, human rights and freedoms are among the highest values, and I think every state chooses its own model. We have chosen the path of democratisation’.
In addition to the spat over Simonyan’s comments, the presence of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Yerevan within the auspices of the European Political Community (EPC) summit earlier in May may have angered both Minsk and Moscow.
Nominally allies, as both Armenia and Belarus are members of the CSTO, relations between Yerevan and Minsk have been in freefall for years, largely over the latter’s support for Azerbaijan.
In 2024, Politico published a report based on leaked documents detailing the alleged supply of advanced military hardware from Belarus to Azerbaijan between 2018 and 2022.
‘Maybe Azerbaijan did buy them [weaponry]. But we were open to [selling to] Armenia too. Whoever paid the money got the goods’, Belarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenka said at the time.
Lukashenka has also directly attacked Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, claiming in January 2025 that he will ‘destroy Armenia’.
Earlier, in June 2024, Pashinyan declared that no Armenian officials would visit Belarus while Lukashenka was in power, due to the latter’s support for Azerbaijan during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
