Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian sacked his chief of protocol on Monday two days after publicly mistaking the name of Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s country during their meeting in Yerevan.
“First of all, I would like to welcome the president of Kazakhstan, Sadyr Japarov, to Armenia once again,” Pashinian said in a statement to the press read out by him after their talks.
The Armenian government gave no reason for the ensuing sacking of the head of its protocol service, Gagik Vanoyan. It was thus not immediately whether he lost his job because of Pashinian’s embarrassing gaffe. Vanoyan headed the service for almost four years.
Japarov combined an official visit to Armenia with his participation in the COP17 Biodiversity Conference that began its work in Yerevan late last week. Three other foreign heads of state or government, including Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, also attended the opening session of the United Nations forum.