ArmInfo. Armenian Foreign Ministry stands in support for Russian- Israeli blog writer Alexander Lapshin arrested by Belarusian authorities on Baku's demand, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan told journalists on January 19 after the government's session. According to the Deputy Minister it is difficult to forecast how the issue will be solved as Aliyev's regime actions contradict to the international law.
"Obviously, this is a harsh violation of the norms of international law both in the context of free movement of citizens and freedom of speech. At the moment international structures and states have already reacted. Let us see how the situation will develop", Kocharyan noted.
To remind, in the middle of December the citizen of the Russian Federation Alexander Lapshin has been arrested in the Republic of Belarus with the purpose of extradition on the demand of Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno-Karabakh and making notes about those visitations in his blog. Lapshin is included in Azerbaijan's black list for visiting Karabakh and he was forbidden to enter Azerbaijan. However, in June 2015 Lapshin arrived in Azerbaijan via Georgia with his Ukrainian passport. After that Azerbaijan put him on wanted list for violation of the law on state border and migration code of the country. General Prosecutor's Office of Belarus informed earlier that the issue of extraditing Lapshin to Azerbaijan is being studied but no decision has been made yet.
To note, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister stated at the annual press conference in Moscow, commenting the detention of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin in Minsk due to Azerbaijan's request for his visit to Nagorno Karabakh. "Russia is against criminalization of journalists or simply private persons visiting any region", he said. "Second, we are against extradition of Russian nationals arrested in any country, to third countries. We had consular contact with Lapshin, we know that he is also an Israeli citizen and Israeli diplomats had contact with him as well. We will take all the steps to solve this situation within the respect to all the rights of Russian citizen, which is also an Israeli citizen," Lavrov accentuated.