YEREVAN. - Armenians and Belarusians have different perceptions about friendship.

Deputy Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Eduard Sharmazanov, who is also the Spokesperson for the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am, referring to the statement made earlier by Spokesperson for the Belarusian MFA, Dmitry Mironchik.

“This first of all concerns not Armenia but the Russian-Belarusian relations, since Lapshin is a citizen of the Russian Federation. And this dark deal is first of all aimed against Russia, against the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict and only then Armenia,” Sharamzanov said.

In his words, every person has a right to express his view on a certain phenomenon. “Of course, there were emotional assessments, but they had much to do with the reality,” he stressed.

Touching on the calls to freeze Armenia’s membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization  (CSTO), Sharmazanov said that he is against that approach.  

“Apparently, I am against raising the issue on freezing Armenia’s activity in the CSTO or withdrawal of Belarus’ membership from CSTO. But it is a fact that the deal of the Belarusian president with Azerbaijan was shameful and didn’t stem from our friendly relations.  If they insist that they have done nothing unfriendly, I will reiterate that we have different perceptions about friendship,” Sharmazanov noted.

Earlier, Spokesperson for the Belarusian MFA, Dmitry Mironchik, noted that Belarus stems from the fact that Armenia is a friendly country for it, the statements of the Armenian deputies made against the backdrop of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin’s extradition to Azerbaijan being “merely emotions.”