Armenia’s Political Tensions Escalate; Protestors Storm Government Building
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Armenia’s political tensions escalated Monday, with protestors storming a government building in Yerevan, the capital, and opponents demonstrated nearby.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faces demands to resign after signing a peace deal in November that ended six weeks of intense fighting with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Outnumbered guards watched as dozens of protestors entered the demonstrators burst into a government complex housing several ministries.
The protestors want Pashinyan to step down immediately. Critics blamed him for Armenia’s defeat by neighboring Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.
An opposition activist made clear that “the break-in showed that they could get into any government building”—the complex houses several ministries.
He and others are furious that the prime minister accepted a Russia-brokered peace deal. That ended the deadliest clashes in years between forces loyal to mainly Christian Armenia and heavily Muslim Azerbaijan. The conflict reportedly killed more than 5,000 soldiers as well as civilians.
RECAPTURING AREAS
During six weeks of fighting late in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured areas around the enclave. It also took the key town of Shusha inside it. Under the Russian-brokered deal that emerged shortly afterward, Azerbaijan kept the areas it captured. And, hundreds of Russian peacekeepers are in the disputed area to monitor a tense peace.
Amid the turmoil over his policies, Prime Minister Pashinyan warned of an attempted military coup against a democratically elected government. He also fired a deputy chief of the military’s General Staff. The officer had laughed off the prime minister’s claim that only 10 percent of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles used by Armenia in the recent conflict exploded on impact.
The General Staff then demanded Pashinyan’s resignation. But the prime minister responded by dismissing the General Staff chief, Col. Gen. Onik Gasparyan.
His dismissal is yet to be approved by the nation’s largely ceremonial president, Armen Sarkissian, who already said the move was unconstitutional. Pashinyan quickly resubmitted the demand for the general’s ouster.
The prime minister’s allies warned Monday that they could impeach the president if he fails to endorse the move. Supporters of the prime minister and his opponent planned massive rival rallies in Yerevan Monday, another sign that Armenia’s turmoil is far from over.
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