Simonian talked to Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya as he attended a session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly bringing together lawmakers from the European Union and several ex-Soviet states seeking closer ties with the EU.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan also made a point of speaking with Tsikhanouskaya during an EU summit in the Spanish city of Granada last October. The move came amid Armenia’s deepening rift with Russia, of which Belarus is the closest ally.
Also, Lukashenko has for years raised eyebrows in Armenia with his pro-Azerbaijani statements on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Earlier this month, the long-serving strongman repeated those statements and criticized Pashinian’s threats to pull Armenia out of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Tsikhanouskaya was the main opposition candidate allowed to take part in a 2020 presidential election which handed Lukashenko a sixth term as president. The Belarusian opposition and the West refused to recognize the results of the vote followed by anti-government protests and a brutal crackdown on its participants.
Tsikhanouskaya left Belarus and currently lives in Lithuania. She is regularly invited to events organized by Western governments.
“I had a great meeting with the President of the National Assembly of Armenia,” she tweeted late on Thursday. “I hope for increased cooperation and partnership, both on a parliamentary and societal level. I expressed my support for Armenia's efforts to work closely with the EU.”
Citing Tsikhanouskaya’s office, Belarusian opposition outlets said Simonian assured her that Armenian authorities will grant political asylum to a young Belarusian man who was arrested while entering Armenia from Georgia earlier this year and is now facing extradition to Belarus where he is accused of draft evasion.
Simonian’s spokeswoman, Nelli Ghulian, denied that on Friday, saying that the Armenian speaker did not even discuss the issue with Tsikhanouskaya. Ghulian also stressed that “there was no official meeting with Tsikhanouskaya.”
The arrested man, Yaroslav Novikov, claims to have fled to Georgia after taking part in the 2020 protests against Lukashenko. “He is afraid that if he returns to his homeland he will be subjected to political persecution,” Novikov’s Armenian lawyer, Arayik Papikian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.