Thousands protest Armenia’s prime minister over Azerbaijan moves

YEREVAN: Thousands of protesters rallied outside Armenia´s parliament on Monday demanding the removal of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his decision to hand four villages over to arch-foe Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan has said that ceding the land, which Yerevan seized in a 1990s war and has controlled since, would unlock progress towards settling the decades-long dispute between the two countries.

But it triggered a wave of mass protests inside Armenia and criticsm of Pashinyan for unilaterally giving into Baku´s demands without getting anything in return.

The Caucasus rivals have fought two wars for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured last year from Armenian separatists who had ruled the enclave for three decades.