Protests Erupt in Armenia Over Ceding Villages to Azerbaijan
Thousands of Armenians protested on Sunday, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after Armenia ceded several villages near the border to Azerbaijan to end a decades-old territorial dispute, reports AFP.
The demonstrators gathered in Republic Square in Yerevan, where the protests were led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan from the Tavush region, where the four villages handed over to the Azeris on Friday are located. Armenians began to protest last month after the government in Yerevan accepted ceding some territories it had controlled since the 1990s.
These territories were of strategic importance for Armenia because they allowed control of a portion of a vital route to Georgia. The inhabitants near the targeted villages claim that they are now isolated from the rest of the country and accuse Pashinyan of not obtaining anything in return.
The Prime Minister, however, claims that the decision aims to guarantee peace with Azerbaijan, a state with which Armenia has fought several wars since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, of which both republics were part.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
