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Friday July 26, 2024

Thousands protest Armenia’s prime minister over Azerbaijan moves

By AFP
June 11, 2024
Armenians rally to demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans resignation over land transfer to neighboring Azerbaijan, at the central Republic Square in Yerevan on May 26, 2024.— AFP
Armenians rally to demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's resignation over land transfer to neighboring Azerbaijan, at the central Republic Square in Yerevan on May 26, 2024.— AFP

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.