Senior members of the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance and over a dozen other groups announced their “pan-national consolidation” at the end of an emergency meeting held hours after the arrest of Samvel Karapetian, a billionaire businessman leading the alliance.

“The undersigned political forces agree to join forces with the aim of fostering an atmosphere of public unity around priority national issues and addressing the challenges facing our country,” they said in a joint statement read out by Karapetian’s nephew and right-hand man Narek.

Their declared common goals include scuttling the adoption of the new constitution which they believe is being imposed on Armenia by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and preventing other “unilateral concessions” to Baku. They also pledged to defend the Armenian Apostolic Church against Pashinian’s attacks and to “restore democratic freedoms and rights” in the country.

“We have many differences, but what unites us is our love for the homeland and our desire to fight to defend our national identity,” Narek Karapetian added for his part. “Today is the most important day for protecting our country against a constitution imposed by Aliyev.”

Neither he nor the statement specified concrete joint actions that will be taken by the opposition forces for that purpose.

“All methods allowed by the constitution can be used, but I won’t talk about that today,” Karapetian told reporters when asked about the possibility of joint opposition demonstrations.

Among the statement’s signatories are former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance, the second parliamentary opposition force, as well as businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) and opposition parties headed by two other ex-presidents, Serzh Sarkisian and Levon Ter-Petrosian.

Strong Armenia, Hayastan and the BHK were the ruling Civil Contract party’s main challengers in parliamentary elections held in June. Pashinian repeatedly vowed to jail their top leaders during the election campaign. Kocharian and Tsarukian were arrested in the wake of the elections denounced by the Armenian opposition as fraudulent.

Narek Karapetian said earlier in the day that the meeting held at his uncle’s villa in Yerevan was originally scheduled for Thursday. It was brought forward because of the tycoon’s arrest, he told journalists.

Samvel Karapetian was arrested on charges stemming from his ownership of Armenia’s national electric utility seized by the government last year. His political allies rejected the accusations as politically motivated. They said Pashinian is thus pressuring Strong Armenia to stop blocking the holding of a referendum on the constitution.