Armenia: the president refuses to sack the army chief, as Nikol Pachinian wants
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian (here in October 2020) denounced an attempted coup after the call for his resignation launched by the general staff.
AP - Tigran Mehrabyan
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian refused this Saturday February 27 to sign the order of Prime Minister Niko Pachinian dismissing the head of the army.
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The political crisis that has shaken Armenia since November and its
defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh
has just experienced a new twist.
Using one of his rare prerogatives, the Armenian president refused to dismiss the army chief, as demanded by Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian.
On Thursday, when
the General Staff called for his resignation
, the head of government denounced an attempted coup, ordered the dismissal of army chief Onik Gasparian, and gathered some 20,000 of his supporters in the capital Yerevan.
The opposition responded, too, Thursday and Friday with thousands of demonstrators, demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister.
They were still at least 5,000 this Saturday morning in front of Parliament.
"
The president, within the framework of the powers conferred on him by the Constitution, returned the text with objections,
" the presidency said in a statement, adding that the political crisis "
cannot be resolved by frequent changes of officials
" .
One way to highlight the many departures of high-profile ministers since the humiliating defeat against Azerbaijan.
It is not the first time that Armen Sarkissian intervenes on the political scene.
In the aftermath of the disturbances which had followed the announcement of the end of the war, with the sacking of the Prime Minister's office and of Parliament in particular, this rare political figure appreciated in the country had offered to help in the constitution of a government of national unity.
Before returning to his initiative.
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Armenia
Nikol Pachinian