Some 5,000 people demonstrated in Yerevan on Monday May 2 to demand the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, accused by the opposition of wanting to cede the entire separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

"We are launching a popular protest movement to force Pashinian to resign," deputy speaker of parliament and opposition leader Ichkhan Sagatelian told AFP.

"He is a traitor, he lied to the people," he added, accusing Nikol Pashinyan, 46, of wanting to cede Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist region populated by a majority of Armenians, to Azerbaijan. .

"He has no popular mandate to do so," said Ichkhan Sagatelian.

Nagorno-Karabakh, which the two countries have been fighting over for thirty years, was the subject of a six-week war in 2020 that left more than 6,500 dead.

A Russian-brokered ceasefire then came into effect.

Under the deal, Armenia ceded territories it had controlled since a first victorious war in the early 1990s, while a Russian peacekeeping force was deployed in the region.

"The international community calls on Armenia to reduce its demands on Nagorno-Karabakh," Armenia's prime minister told parliament in April.

Remarks that the opposition interpreted as a desire to renounce the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Ichkhan Sagatelian warned that the protests would continue as long as Nikol Pashinyan remained in power.

“Our people have never been in such a depressed state”

"Nikol must resign. His pathetic policy has resulted in territorial and human loss of life," said a protester.

"Our people have never been in such a depressed state. We don't see the light at the end of the tunnel." 

On Monday morning, public transport traffic was disrupted in the Armenian capital, as small groups of protesters tried to block the city center.

The police briefly arrested dozens of participants.

The Union of Journalists, a media advocacy organization, criticized the methods used by the police, citing several examples of journalists covering opposition protests being molested by police.

On Sunday, several thousand people had already called for the resignation of Nikol Pashinyan.

The Russian-brokered ceasefire deal was seen as a national humiliation in Armenia and sparked weeks of anti-government protests.

Talks in preparation 

In September, Nikol Pashinian's party, the Civil Contract, won the snap legislative elections called following these demonstrations.

In April, Armenia and Azerbaijan announced preparations for peace talks to resolve the conflict, as part of a meeting in Brussels between Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, under the mediation by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers were then instructed to "begin preparations for peace talks between the two countries".

Baku presented its proposals in mid-March for a peace agreement which provides for the mutual recognition by the two parties of their territorial integrity – which would mean, for Yerevan, the recognition of Azerbaijan's sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.

With AFP

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