Armenian opposition blockades parliament building
YEREVAN, March 10, /ARKA/. Thousands of opposition supporters demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan blockaded the Armenian parliament building on Tuesday, setting up tents in front of its gate, as they did earlier on the nearby Baghramyan Avenue.
Ishkhan Saghatelyan, representative of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun Supreme Body, said that the protesters would block other state buildings as well.
"We must blockade all those state institutions that carry out anti-national, anti-state and anti-constitutional activities," he said.
“We had expectations from the president after he took the first step refusing to sign Pashinyan's order to sack the chief of the armed forces staff. Today for some unknown reason, he did not ask the Constitutional Court to verify the constitutionality of Pashinyan's order and therefore, he is also responsible for the tension that has arisen," he said.
Saghatelyan told opposition activists not to succumb to provocations, saying that none of them was going to break through the National Assembly gate. "This is our civil disobedience action against this parliament," he said.
Earlier, during the opposition rally, a scuffle broke out between the protesters and the police, when the latter tried to prevent the demonstrators from blocking Demirchyan Street and setting up tents there.
Nikol Pashinyan has been facing opposition demands to resign since he signed a peace deal in November with Azerbaijani and Russian leaders to end the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh that claimed thousands of young lives, and saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter of a century.
The standoff has intensified after Pashinyan fired a deputy chief of the army's general staff Tiran Khachatryan who reportedly laughed off his claim that only 10% of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles that Armenia used in the conflict exploded.
After Khachatryan's sacking the chief of the army staff Onik Gasparyan and more than 40 other high-ranking army officers signed under a statement demanding Pashinyan's resignation. Pashinyan reiterated by issuing an order to sack Gasparyan and called the demand as attempted coup.
However, Armenia's largely ceremonial president, Armen Sarkissian refused to sign it and sent back to Pashinyan's office. "Political struggle must not go beyond the bounds of the law, it should not lead to shocks and instability," he said in a statement.
Pashinyan quickly resubmitted the demand warning that the president could be impeached if he fails to endorse the move.-0-
