In Armenia on Friday, February 26, the actions of opponents of the country's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continued. 

The security forces blocked one of the central avenues of the city, where the demonstrators set up tents and spent the night, made fires and promised to stay there until Pashinyan resigns.

In the afternoon, opposition supporters held a rally at the residence of the Prime Minister, as well as at the building of the General Prosecutor's Office.

After that, they reached the residence of the President of the Republic Armen Sarkisyan, where they turned to him with a demand not to approve Pashinyan's order on the resignation of the head of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan.

The President of Armenia stated that he would continue consultations on the issue of dismissing Gasparyan, noting that a specific decision has not yet been made.

Demonstrators later gathered outside the parliament building.

Sargsyan on Friday held meetings with the head of the “My Step” parliamentary faction Lilit Makunts, the leader of the “Enlightened Armenia” Edmond Marukyan and the secretary of “Prosperous Armenia” Arman Abovyan, discussing the political situation in the country with them. 

“Issues related to the relaxation of tension and the search for a peaceful solution to the situation were discussed.

Representatives of the parliamentary forces presented their approaches and views to the president of the republic, ”TASS quoted the press service of the Armenian leader as saying.

In addition, the leader of the republic visited the General Staff, where he met with Onik Gasparyan himself.

Sargsyan's administration does not give details of the meeting.

Let us remind you that mass protest actions began in the country after the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia published a statement demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and the entire government, noting that the Cabinet of Ministers is not capable of making decisions in a crisis situation. 

The document was signed by Onik Gasparyan, his deputies, heads of departments and corps.

Pashinyan called this demand an attempt at a coup and called on his supporters to gather in the center of Yerevan, and also announced the decision to dismiss the chief of the General Staff and his first deputy.

The reason for the conflict was Pashinyan's statement that the Iskander missiles allegedly used in the course of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh "did not explode or only exploded by 10%."

The prime minister's words were ridiculed by the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff Tiran Khachatryan, who was then fired, and on the morning of February 25, Pashinyan announced his intention to reform the national armed forces.

At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense admitted that Pashinyan was misled and he used inaccurate information when making a statement about the Iskander.

The ministry stressed that none of the missile systems of this type were used during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev also reacted to Pashinyan's words, who called the statement on missiles "another blunder".

He specified that Azerbaijan did not record the use of Iskander in the course of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“I would not want to be ironic on this topic, there were enough comments among Russian officials, members of the Russian parliament and experts that the rocket had to try very hard to explode by 10%,” TASS quoted him as saying.

At the same time, Aliyev called the events in Yerevan an internal affair of Armenia and expressed the hope that they would not affect the implementation of the trilateral statement on Karabakh, which was signed jointly with Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 9.

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In turn, the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov said that the events in Armenia at the moment do not affect the implementation of the agreements on Nagorno-Karabakh.

He also recalled the previous telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Nikol Pashinyan.

“If you carefully watched the text that was published by us following the conversation, you probably had the opportunity to read there a phrase that the Russian president spoke in favor of resolving the problem within the framework of the law.

This is a very important phrase, "Peskov said.

A similar point of view was expressed by the chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, who spoke on the phone with the head of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan.

“The interlocutors discussed the latest events in Yerevan.

The Chairperson of the Federation Council noted that Russia considers the ongoing events as internal and counts on resolving the situation exclusively in a peaceful manner, ”the press service of the Federation Council noted.