(Yerevan) Hundreds of opposition demonstrators who tried to block dozens of streets in the capital Yerevan were arrested on Wednesday in this country of the South Caucasus, noted an AFP journalist.
Posted at 11:59
According to a statement from the Armenian police, around 7 a.m. GMT, the security forces “briefly arrested 277 people” in total. The day before, several hundred people had already been arrested, whereas at the start of the movement, in April, these arrests numbered in the dozens.
Yerevan has been the scene of protests against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian for a month, and protesters often try to block thoroughfares in the city center, prompting police intervention.
Since mid-April, opposition parties have regularly called for rallies demanding the resignation of the head of government, accusing him of his management of the conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorny Karabakh region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have gone to war twice, in the 1990s and then in 2020, for control of Nagorny Karabakh, a separatist territory in Azerbaijan but populated by Armenians.
Six weeks of conflict in the fall of 2020 claimed some 6,500 lives and led to significant territorial losses for Armenia. Since then, a Russian-brokered ceasefire has been established under the aegis of Russian peacekeepers.
For the opposition, the Armenian military defeat of 2020 is a national humiliation and it has since been trying to obtain the departure of Mr. Pashinian. But he won with his party early elections last year, consolidating his power.
This year, the Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities have multiplied the signals with a view to the formal opening of peace negotiations, so much so that the Armenian opponents accuse the Prime Minister of wanting to give in to the claims of their neighbor and enemy.