ArmInfo.. "There were no political overtones in my meeting with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya," President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Alen Simonyan told reporters on March 27.
I simply thanked him for his speech, which contained support for Armenia> According to him, the statements attributed to him regarding this meeting are absurd. "We participated in the same event together, left the meeting hall and on the sidelines of the EuroNest PA I just expressed gratitude to her for her speech, which expressed support for Armenia," the Speaker said, adding that similar statements were made in the speeches of representative delegations of other countries as well. Simonyan emphasized that even after the speech of the speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, no reaction was required from the Armenian side, since the speaking delegates fully defended the national interests of Armenia. "I could not help but express my gratitude to both Ms Tikhanovskaya and the other speakers. She was just an invited guest and did not have any authority to discuss anything," said the Speaker of the National Assembly, adding that the conversation with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya cannot even be considered as a meeting.
Simonyan considers the posts of the users of the Armenian section of social networks to be frivolous, that it was this meeting that became the reason for Minsk's official decision to stop the supply of goods to "Ararat Brandy Factory" LLC.
The conversation between the two politicians took place on the sidelines of the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, which was held in Brussels. Earlier, Tikhanovskaya's press service reported that during the meeting, a representative of the Belarusian opposition expressed words of solidarity with Armenia, and also thanked RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for his decision not to participate in the CSTO Summit in Minsk last November. During the meeting with the Armenian delegation, the issue of Belarusian citizen Yaroslav Novikov, who was detained at the request of the Belarusian security forces, was also raised. Armenian representatives reported that he would receive political asylum.
Meanwhile, it became known that the import of products from the Ararat Brandy Factory was banned in Belarus. This was reported by the Kommersant newspaper with reference to the relevant resolution of the Deputy Minister of Health, Chief Sanitary Doctor of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Tarasenko. The document dated March 19 states that the decision was made in connection with the discovery of the synthetic dye azorubine in one of the wines produced by the factory.