Avet Demourian
Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have marched across the Armenian capital to push for the resignation of the nation’s prime minister over his handling of the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In six weeks of fierce fighting that ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal on November 10, the Azerbaijani army reclaimed land that Armenian forces have held for more than quarter of a century.
Armenia’s opposition parties warned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan there would be civil disobedience across the country if he does not resign by noon on Tuesday.
Pashinyan has refused to step down, defending the peace agreement as a painful but necessary move that prevented Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.
More than 20,000 protesters rallied in Yerevan on Saturday, chanting “Nikol, you traitor” and “Nikol, go away” as they marched to the prime minister’s official residence.
“The seat of the prime minister of Armenia is currently being occupied by a political corpse,” Artur Vanetsyan, the leader of the opposition party Homeland and the former head of the National Security Service, said at the protest rally.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That conflict left not only Nagorno-Karabakh itself but large chunks of surrounding lands in Armenian hands.
In 44 days of fighting that began on September 27, Azerbaijani troops routed the Armenian forces and wedged deep into Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing Armenia to accept the November peace deal that saw the return to Azerbaijan of a significant part of the region.
Azerbaijan celebrated the end of fighting as a national triumph, and President Ilham Aliyev established a new national holiday called Victory Day to commemorate the event.
Azerbaijan on Thursday released information on its military casualties from the latest fighting. The Defence Ministry said 2,783 troops were killed and more than 100 were still missing. The government said 94 of its civilians were killed and more than 400 wounded.
Armenia’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday that at least 2,718 Armenian servicemen and 55 civilians were killed in the fighting.
Australian Associated Press