Tensions between Nikol Pashinyan and the military are rising as new anti-government protests gain momentuM
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has warned of an “attempted coup” against him after top military officials demanded he resigns over his handling of last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Also under pressure from a growing protest movement, Pashinyan on Thursday announced he had fired Onik Gasparyan, the head of the army’s General Staff, and urged the military to listen only to his orders.“The most important problem now is to keep the power in the hands of the people, because I consider what is happening to be a military coup,” Pashinyan said in an address to the nation broadcast on Facebook.
The prime minister was later seen marching through the capital, Yerevan, with hundreds of supporters.
reporting from Yerevan, said that move showed the prime minister had “no plans to leave” his post.
“But tension is in the air,” he said.Pashinyan has faced calls to quit since November, with critics angered over the outcome of the six-week Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which killed thousands on both sides but saw swathes of territory in and around the mountainous region ceded to Azerbaijan.
The war ended in November when both sides signed a Russian-brokered peace deal.
The demonstrations had gone dormant for a spell in the depth of Armenia’s winter but have resumed in recent days.
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