Nver Kirakosyan and Artur Avagyan, who are participants of the 44-day war in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in 2020, started an open-ended hunger strike in Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Monday morning.

They announced plans to go on a hunger strike late on Sunday, joining the protest in support of Artsakh held indefinitely by MP Artur Vanetsyan, leader of the opposition With Honor faction, and dozens of other opposition activists, since Sunday evening.

“The hunger strike is aimed at drawing the attention of our generation to the situation around Artsakh and to push for practical steps. The move is radical, spontaneous, but relevant to the situation,” Kirakosyan wrote on Facebook, stressing that it is not politically motivated and calling on young people to join them.

Vanetsyan, however, urged them to end the hunger strike.

“I can feel the pain and anger of the boys who lost their fellow soldiers in the 44-day war. The guys consider their actions an adequate response to the situation, but I urged them to stop the hunger strike,” the opposition leader said.

The protest comes after Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that the international community is pressing Armenia to “lower the bar on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status” and recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.