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Opponent Vazgen Manukyan told a rally that the military should not follow “illegal orders” from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian after the president called for the removal of the army chief. Protests against the Pashinian continue after the country’s defeat in November by handing over previously controlled territories in the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region to Azerbaijan.
The protests continued this Friday in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and one of his opponents called on the Army to rebel. The demonstrations come the day after the president denounced that there was an attempted coup by the armed forces, which published a statement demanding his resignation and that of his government.
On Thursday, thousands took to the streets in support of the prime minister and this Friday as many asked for his resignation. Critics of the president have called for him to resign since November 2020, when, after a six-week campaign, Pashinian was forced to hand over to Azerbaijan portions of territory that for decades had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region, a an area that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijani territory, but has Armenian majorities.
Opposition leader asks the Army to rebel
On Thursday, the prime minister said he was going to fire the chief of the army, Onik Gasparyan. But this Friday, February 26, the country’s president, Armen Sarkissian, had not approved the expulsion, a necessary endorsement to complete the process. The president’s office said Sarkissian met with Gasparyan, but did not offer further details about the meeting.
Vazgen Manukyan, an opposition leader who has been proposed by detractors of the current president as a possible interim prime minister while elections are being called, asked his followers not to allow the expulsion of the head of the armed forces.
“Do you think the Army will easily accept that Pashinian illegally removes his head? No. The Army will rebel. I call on the Army to rebel. The Army should not follow illegal orders,” the opposition leader told a crowd.
The loss of Nagorno Karabakh, the center of the political storm
The former journalist and former legislator Nikol Pashinian came to power after the so-called Velvet Revolution, which rejected in 2018 the reelection of Serzh Sargsián, who between the presidency and the position of prime minister had been in power since 2007.
So Pashinian won the backing of the military, but the recent defeat in Nagorno Karabakh sets a new tone in internal relations.
Armenians had controlled the area since the 1990s, following a conflict with Azerbaijan in which at least 30,000 people died. Last year, the clashes began in October and after six weeks, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire with the mediation of Russia. Moscow forces have deployed a team of guarantors to guarantee the truce and this Friday they insisted on the need for the agreement to be fully implemented despite the internal crisis in Armenia.
With Reuters
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source https://pledgetimes.com/armenia-opposition-leader-calls-on-army-to-rebel-against-prime-minister/
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