Thousands of Armenians held anti-government demonstrations on Sunday, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over territorial concessions to arch-foe neighbour Azerbaijan.
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Protests erupted in the Caucasus country last month after the government agreed to hand over territory it has controlled since the 1990s to Baku.
The ceded territory is strategically important to landlocked Armenia as it controls part of a vital highway to Georgia.
Ethnic Armenians living in nearby settlements say the move cuts them off from the rest of the country and that Pashinyan is surrendering territory without getting anything in return.
Yerevan on Friday returned four border villages it had seized decades ago to Azerbaijan in a major step toward normalizing ties between the two rival countries, who fought two wars over the then-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
An AFP journalist reported that thousands of people gathered in Republic Square in central Yerevan in fresh protests spearheaded by charismatic Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian, a church leader in the Tavush region, whose villages were handed over to Azerbaijan.
“We, the people, want to change the bitter reality that has been imposed on us,” Galstanyan told the crowd, adding that repairing the shaky border with Azerbaijan “can only be carried out after a peace treaty with Baku is signed.”
“We demand Nikol (Pashinyan)'s immediate resignation,” said one protester, Artur Sarkisian, 67.
“I fought two wars with Azerbaijan. We will not let Azerbaijan take our land.”
“For change”
Pashinyan defended the territorial concessions as aimed at securing peace with Baku, but they sparked weeks of protests, with demonstrators blocking major roads to pressure the president to change course.
In a televised statement on Friday evening, the president said a resolution to the border dispute with Azerbaijan was “the only guarantee for the very existence of the Republic of Armenia within its legitimate internationally recognized borders.”
Galstanyan is calling for the opening of impeachment proceedings against Pashinyan, a former journalist who rose to power in 2018 by leading peaceful street protests.
The archbishop said Sunday he would resign from his priesthood to run for prime minister and called for early parliamentary elections.
“My spiritual service takes precedence over any position, but I am ready to sacrifice it for change in this country,” he told the cheering crowd.
He then called on protesters to march to Mr Pashinyan's residence.
The opposition needs the support of at least one independent or ruling party lawmaker to start impeachment proceedings, and then success will depend on whether at least 18 lawmakers from Pashinyan's own party can vote to remove him from office.
Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh last year in a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists who had controlled the mountainous region for three decades.
Following the incident, the entire Armenian population of the region (more than 100,000 people) fled to Armenia.
(AFP)
