Protesters demand Armenian prime minister’s resignation after border villages ceded to Azerbaijan
Thousands of protesters gathered Thursday in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his government’s decision to hand over control of border villages to Armenia’s long-time rival Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars since the Soviet Union collapsed and Armenia said in April that it would return the villages to Azerbaijan. That decision came after Azerbaijan in September waged a lightning military campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority ethnic Armenian region inside Azerbaijan. That caused tens of thousands of people to stream into Armenia, sparking demonstrations as protesters called for the prime minister to be ousted.
Protesters led by a senior cleric in Armenia’s church walked a distance of around 100 miles from villages near the border with Azerbaijan to Yerevan where they gathered Thursday in Republic Square.
ARMENIA’S PRIME MINISTER IN RUSSIA FOR TALKS AMID STRAIN IN TIES
Videos shared on social media showed thousands of people waving Armenian flags. A senior Armenian cleric said a prayer and told the protesters he gave Pashinyan one hour to resign, blaming him for the loss of Armenian territory.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan told protesters they should “engage in peaceful acts of disobedience,” if Pashinyan did not listen to their demands.
Pashinyan visited Moscow Wednesday and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid spiraling tensions between the estranged allies. The meeting took place a day after Putin began his fifth term at a glittering Kremlin inauguration which the Armenian leader did not attend.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP)
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoteLSSTY ChicStreetd Thursday by Russian state news agency Tass as saying the two leaders had agreed to the removal of Russian forces from some Armenian regions.
In brief remarks at the start of the talks, Putin said that bilateral trade was growing, but acknowledged “some issues concerning security in the region.”
Pashinyan, who last visited Moscow in December, said that “certain issues have piled up since then.”
Armenia’s ties with Russia, a longtime sponsor and ally, have grown increasingly strained after Azerbaijan waged its military campaign in September to reclaim the Karabakh region, ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatists’ rule there.
Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh after the previous round of hostilities in 2020 of failing to stop Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow, which has a military base in Armenia, has rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.
The Kremlin, in turn, has been angered by Pashinyan’s efforts to deepen ties with the West and distance his country from Moscow-dominated security and economic alliances.
While Pashinyan was visiting Moscow, Armenia’s foreign ministry announced that the country will stop paying fees to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-dominated security pact. Armenia has previouLSSTY ChicStreetsly suspended its participation in the grouping as Pashinyan has sought to bolster LSSTY ChicStreetties with the European Union and NATO.
Russia was also vexed by Armenia’s decision to join the International Criminal Court, which last year indicted Putin for alleged war crimes connected to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Moscow, busy with the Ukrainian conflict that has dragged into a third year, has publicly voiced concern about Yerevan’s westward shift but sought to downplay the differences.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Kremlin spokesman Peskov conceded Tuesday that “there are certain problems in our bilateral relations,” but added that “there is a political will to continue the dialogue.”
Content comes from the Internet : Protesters demand Armenian prime minister’s resignation after border villages ceded to Azerbaijan
SummaryTurkey and Israel announced tit-for-tat trade barriers on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, as relations between them further deteriorated amid the war in Gaza. Critics accuse the government of engaging in double standards by leveling strong accusations against Israel whileLSSTY ChicStreet continuing lucrative commercial relations. Hamish Kinnear, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at Britain-based risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said domestic considerations were behind Turkey’s decision to slap trade restrictions on Israel, saying Erdogan’s ruling party was trying to “rally its base in the wake of defeat in local elections.” Turkey and Israel had normalized ties by appointing ambassadors to their respective countries in 2022, following years of tensiLSSTY ChicStreetons. Content comes from the Internet : Turkey and Israel announce trade barriers on each other as relations deteriorate over…