Tensions between Nikol Pashinyan and the military are rising as a new protest movement against the PM gains momentum.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has warned of an “attempted coup” against him as he fired a top army official in response to the military’s call for his resignation.
Pashinyan has faced protests and calls to quit after what critics said was the disastrous handling of the recent six-week Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.
Having previously rejected the calls to step down, Pashinyan announced Thursday’s move against Onik Gasparyan, the head of the army’s General Staff, in an address to the nation broadcast on Facebook. He urged the military to only listen 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.
He was later seen marching through the capital, Yerevan, with hundreds of supporters.
The developments came as anti-government protesters, still angered by Pashinyan’s handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, renewed their calls for him to quit.
Throngs of opposition demonstrators also swarmed the streets of Yerevan on Thursday, chanting “Nikol, you traitor!” and “Nikol, resign!” while blocking streets and paralysing traffic all around the capital, the Associated Press news agency reported.
The demonstrations against Pashinyan began in November, in the wake of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict [Armenian Prime Minister Press Service/Tigran Mehrabyan/PAN Photo via Reuters]
It was unclear whether the army was willing to use force to back its statement, which was issued earlier on Thursday and signed by Gasparyan and other top military officers.
Tensions between the army and Pashinyan had already been rising amid the renewed protest movement; Pashinyan fired the first deputy chief of the General Staff, Tiran Khachatryan, earlier this week.
Khachatryan had derided the prime minister’s claim that just 10 percent of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles that Armenia used in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh exploded on impact.
Moscow calls for calm
The demonstrations against Pashinyan began in November, in the wake of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which claimed thousands of lives and saw swathes of territory in and around the enclave ceded to Azerbaijan.
The war ended when both sides signed a Russian-brokered peace deal.
The mountainous region is internationally recognised as Azerbaijan’s land but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces and self-appointed Armenian officials, backed by Armenia since an earlier war between the rivals concluded in a ceasefire in 1994.
The protests had gone dormant for a spell in the depth of Armenia’s winter but first resumed on Saturday, when thousands of demonstrators took to Yerevan’s streets.
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The Kremlin said on Thursday it was concerned by the growing political tensions in Armenia.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called on the military and Pashinyan’s government to resolve their differences peacefully and within the framework of the constitution.
Armenia, where Moscow has a military base, is a close Russian ally.
Al Jazeera’s Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from neighbouring Georgia, said Pashinyan was in the “political struggle of his life”.
“But it has got to be said that the opposition that have been coming out in recent weeks calling for Pashinyan’s resignation may or may not have the kind of support needed to be the legitimate new face of Armenia,” Forestier-Walker said, citing recent opinion polling.
“Pashinyan may not be as popular as he was, and may have lost a lot of support, but may be the best the country considers there is to offer when it comes to the Armenia political situation.”
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