Armenians protest Nagorno-Karabakh truce terms for 3rd day

Yerevan, November 12

Thousands massed Thursday in Armenia’s capital to protest the phrases of a cease-fire settlement that gave territorial concessions to Azerbaijan within the long-running battle over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The rally marked the third straight day of demonstrations triggered by the truce to halt greater than six weeks of lethal preventing between the 2 ex-Soviet nations.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan however has been underneath management of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist warfare there resulted in 1994.

The Moscow-brokered settlement requires Armenia to show over management of some areas its holds exterior Nagorno-Karabakh’s borders to Azerbaijan.

It prompted celebrations in Baku, however angered Armenians, and plenty of took to the streets quickly after it was introduced early Tuesday.

Protesters stormed authorities buildings and demanded that the pact be invalidated.

At a big rally Wednesday, Armenian opposition events and their supporters demanded that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian resign, calling the settlement he signed “treacherous” and “humiliating”.

Late within the night, lawmakers known as an emergency session of parliament to contemplate Pashinian’s dismissal however didn’t have a quorum to observe by means of with it. Pashinian’s faction holds 88 of 132 seats in parliament, and its members didn’t present up.

Armenian authorities mentioned Thursday they detained 10 opposition politicians on costs of fomenting mass unrest. Naira Zograbyan, a member of the Prosperous Armenia opposition occasion, mentioned at Thursday’s rally that these detained had been political prisoners and expressed concern about additional crackdowns on the opposition.

Crowds of individuals marched by means of the centre of Yerevan and denounced Pashinian, chanting “Nikol, go away!” and “Nikol the traitor!” Over 60 individuals had been detained, Russia’s state information company RIA Novosti reported.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a battle over Nagorno-Karabakh for many years. Heavy preventing that flared up on September 27 marked the most important escalation in over a quarter-century, killing a whole bunch and probably hundreds of individuals.

Several cease-fires prior to now six weeks did not halt the violence however the present settlement gave the impression to be holding, with neither aspect reporting any extra preventing because it got here into pressure.

The truce got here days after Azerbaijan pushed deeper into Nagorno-Karabakh and took management of the town of Shushi, strategically positioned on heights overlooking the regional capital of Stepanakert.

While Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev known as the settlement a “glorious victory”, Pashinian insisted in a collection of video statements that he had no different selection.

On Thursday, he mentioned he signed the pact after the army reported that “the war urgently needs to be stopped”, and the separatist chief of Nagorno-Karabakh informed him that “we could lose Stepanakert in a matter of hours”.

Under the settlement, Russia started to deploy peacekeepers to the area — a complete of 1,960 of them are to maneuver in underneath a five-year mandate.

Turkey, which threw its weight behind Azerbaijan within the battle and sought to play a extra distinguished function within the peace course of, will probably be concerned in monitoring the ceasefire.

Russian and Turkish defence ministers signed a memorandum Wednesday to create a joint monitoring heart in Azerbaijan — a transfer introduced earlier this week by Aliyev.

At the identical time Russian officers underscored that Ankara’s involvement will probably be restricted to the work of the middle on Azerbaijani soil, and Turkish peacekeepers is not going to go to Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The centre will operate remotely, using technical means of control, including drones, to determine the situation on the ground in Karabakh and determine which side is observing and which is violating the cease-fire,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mentioned. AP