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Several protesters were arrested in Armenia on Wednesday during protests against the ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan. Thousands of people gathered in the Armenian capital to demonstrate against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, as images from various media outlets, including TV Rain, a critic of the Kremlin, showed. According to the AFP news agency, the well-known opposition politician Gagik Zarukjan was among those arrested.
The protesters shouted “Nikol is a traitor” and demanded the resignation of the prime minister. Clashes broke out when the police arrested several people. “You won’t be able to arrest the whole country!” Yelled opposition MP Arman Abowian.
Pashinyan had agreed to a ceasefire for Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday night with Azerbaijan and Russia. Fighting in the region has resumed since the end of September. Until now, Nagorno-Karabakh has been largely controlled by Armenians, but under international law it belongs to Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, the first Russian soldiers were stationed there to monitor the ceasefire.
Pashinyan is considered a traitor
The ceasefire agreement stipulates that both conflicting parties can retain the areas in which they currently have control. For Armenia this means huge territorial losses. After the signing of the ceasefire, hundreds of protesters stormed the government headquarters in Pashinyan and the parliament in Yerevan, and the speaker of the parliament was beaten.
Many now see the prime minister as a traitor who has ceded Armenian territories. He himself wrote on Facebook for his signature: “Dear compatriots, sisters and brothers. I have made a difficult decision for me personally and for all of us.” He also said that he took this step after consulting his army. Azerbaijan praised the “surrender” of Armenia.
Nagorno-Karabakh had unilaterally declared its independence during the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was followed by a war with 30,000 dead in the 1990s. The self-proclaimed republic is not yet internationally recognized and is considered part of Azerbaijan under international law. Most of it is inhabited by Armenians. Fighting had broken out again at the end of September. According to both parties, more than a thousand people have died since then.
The Azerbaijani army had captured between 15 and 20 percent of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory in the course of fighting with Armenian troops. The situation of the combatants, as described by the president of the republic not recognized internationally, Arajik Harutjunjan, was very difficult: “The moral and psychological condition of the army was extremely bad, there were diseases such as coronavirus, hemorrhoids and dysentery, we were not “. able to rotate troops to treat the sick. “
Azerbaijan recently took over the city of Shusha, or Shushi in Armenian. The historically and culturally important place for both sides is located on a hill, a few kilometers from the capital of the region, Stepanakert. It would not have been long before the superior Azerbaijani army advanced towards the capital.
Russia sends troops, Turkey wants to continue to have a voice
Russia sent hundreds of soldiers to Nagorno-Karabakh to control the ceasefire. As a representative of the Russian army announced on Wednesday, more than 400 soldiers, as well as eight helicopters and a dozen military vehicles arrived in the conflict zone within 24 hours.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his country wanted to establish a ceasefire monitoring center with Russia. Erdogan said in Ankara on Wednesday that this should arise “in Azerbaijani territory liberated from occupation.” That morning a corresponding agreement was signed. Turkey will participate in the peacekeeping forces with Russia to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire, Erdogan said, which the Russian side apparently sees differently.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the ceasefire monitoring center will be located in Azerbaijani territory and not in the Nagorno-Karabakh areas that had previously been captured by Azerbaijan. “No, we did not understand it that way,” said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. He again denied that Turkey was also sending peacekeeping troops. “No, there was no talk of joint peacekeeping forces.”
