Armenian Protesters Pelt Belarusian Embassy with Eggs and Tomatoes Over Lukashenko's Remarks
On August 21, representatives of the "In the Name of the Republic" party threw eggs, tomatoes, and potatoes at the Belarusian Embassy building in Yerevan.
The protesters expressed dissatisfaction with President Alexander Lukashenko's statements, who claimed that Armenia was not needed in the West and would soon be forgotten there.
Party leader Arman Babajanyan demanded that Armenia sever diplomatic relations with Belarus and declare the Belarusian ambassador a persona non grata. "We demand that Armenia break diplomatic relations with Belarus and declare the ambassador of this country an undesirable person," Babajanyan stated.
During the protest, representatives from a division of Armenia's National Security Service, responsible for guarding diplomatic mission buildings, did not intervene.
Following the incident, Armenia's Chargé d'Affaires was summoned to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry to address the vandalism outside the Belarusian Embassy in Yerevan.
Notably, during his visit to Baku in May of this year, Alexander Lukashenko claimed that he was aware of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev's plan to attack Armenia and that they had even agreed that the issue could be resolved militarily. In response, Nikol Pashinyan stated that Lukashenko had never mentioned such a plan to any Armenian official and asserted that no Armenian official would set foot in Belarus after this. Following these developments, Armenia recalled its ambassador to Belarus for consultations. Razmik Khumaryan has been serving as the head of the Belarusian embassy in Yerevan for the past three months. Meanwhile, Minsk has rejected Yerevan's accusations, claiming that Pashinyan is attempting to divert attention from domestic issues by creating this controversy.