Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday accused the organizers of the ongoing protests against his unilateral territorial concessions to Azerbaijan of attempting to provoke another war between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the aim of toppling his administration during a press conference.
Pashinyan claimed that an invasion by Azerbaijan is imminent if he bows to their demands to halt the handover of key border areas to Baku. He said, “If the process is stopped, a war will break out. I believe that this is [the protest leaders’] goal.”
He added, “The forces that are demanding a halt to the border delimitation will do, with the help of some external forces, everything so that more territories of Armenia are occupied and use that for causing political changes in Armenia,” suggesting they aim to install a “puppet government.”
As Pashinyan spoke, hundreds of protesters led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan continued their march toward Yerevan from the northern Tavush province, which has been at the heart of the border controversy since the early 1990s. Many Tavush residents strongly oppose the unilateral land handover, citing serious security risks.
Galstanyan dismissed Pashinyan’s claims as “unserious” as the Tavush Movement neared Charentsavan, 35 kilometers north of Yerevan. “Shame on him,” said the clergyman.
Scheduled to arrive in Yerevan on May 9, the protesters plan to announce their subsequent actions upon reaching the capital. Galstanyan declined to shed light on the planned actions in Yerevan or whether demands would include Pashinyan’s resignation. “The whole essence of our movement is spiritual,” he stated, adding, “In our country, the truth must defeat the lies. That’s enough. As for the cost and the price of that, we’ll see.”
Galstanyan countered that Pashinyan and his political team are “scared” of the movement he is leading. He also claimed that some senior members of the ruling party are “already sending us confidential messages as to how they could join in.”
Thus far, the protest leaders have not called for Pashinyan’s resignation among their demands, although they have garnered substantial support from the Armenian opposition and other groups and individuals critical of the government.
Opposition leaders have dismissed Pashinyan’s earlier claims that the territorial concessions are necessary to prevent Azerbaijani military aggression. Instead, they argue that he is encouraging Baku to demand more Armenian territory and potentially use force.
The PM has defended the unilateral concessions as necessary measures to prevent Azerbaijani military threats. However, the opposition contends that such actions only embolden Baku to escalate demands and potentially use force.
On the eve of his planned trip to Moscow, Pashinyan described former President Robert Kocharyan, who is the leader of the main opposition Hayastan alliance, as a “beneficiary” of the protests, which he claimed are spearheaded by Catholicos Karekin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He also implicitly accused them of collaborating with Russia.
The Archbishop emphasized that he harbors no political ambitions. Support for the movement has swelled with statements from Yerevan-based opposition politicians and public figures who have vowed to join the efforts to preserve Armenia’s territorial integrity.
