YEREVAN. – Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is participating in the nationwide Saturday volunteer labor day in Armenia.

In capital city Yerevan, he was collecting cigarette butts that were thrown on the ground.

“Smokers are throwing [them] away; nonsmokers [are] collecting [them],” he jokingly noted.

To the remark that he was against the rise in cigarette prices in Armenia, the PM said the matter was about the pace of increasing cigarette prices in the country.

“I’m in favor of the price of cigarettes being raised gradually,” Pashinyan added. “It’s all the same, it will rise. [But] I’m saying that it be balanced.”