Tensions between Nikol Pashinyan and the military are rising as a new protest movement against the PM gains momentum.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has warned of an “attempted coup” against him as he fired a top army official in response to the military’s call for his resignation.
Pashinyan announced Thursday’s move against Onik Gasparyan, the head of the army’s General Staff, in an address to the nation broadcast on Facebook. He urged the military to only listen to his orders.
Having previously rejected their demands that he step down, Pashinyan also called for his supporters to rally in the centre of the capital, Yerevan.
The development comes as anti-government protesters, still angered by Pashinyan’s handling of the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, renew their calls for him to quit.
Throngs of opposition demonstrators swarmed the streets of Yerevan on Thursday, chanting “Nikol, you traitor!” and “Nikol, resign!” while blocking streets and paralysing traffic all around the capital, the Associated Press news agency reported.
It was unclear whether the army was willing to use force to back its statement, which was issued earlier on Thursday and signed by Gasparyan and other top military officers.
Tensions between the army and Pashinyan had already been rising amid the renewed protest movement; Pashinyan fired the first deputy chief of the General Staff, Tiran Khachatryan, earlier this week.
Khachatryan had derided the prime minister’s claim that just 10 percent of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles that Armenia used in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh exploded on impact.
The demonstrations against Pashinyan began in November, in the wake of six weeks of conflict that claimed thousands of lives and saw swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh ceded to Azerbaijan.
The war ended when both sides signed a Russian-brokered peace deal.
The mountainous region is internationally recognised as Azerbaijan’s land but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces and self-appointed Armenian officials, backed by Armenia since an earlier war between the rivals concluded in a ceasefire in 1994.
The protests had gone dormant for a spell in the depth of Armenia’s winter but first resumed on Saturday, when thousands of demonstrators took to Yerevan’s streets.
The Kremlin said on Thursday it was concerned by the growing political tensions in Armenia.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called on the military and Pashinyan’s government to resolve their differences peacefully and within the framework of the constitution.
Armenia, where Moscow has a military base, is a close Russian ally.