A mass rally against Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other members of the country’s government turned into a clash between protesters and police near the Foreign Ministry building in Yerevan on Friday.
Footage features demonstrators with smoke flares chanting slogans outside the ministry and clashing with police officers. Several protesters can be seen detained during the rally.
According to the media reports, 26 people were detained outside the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
The rally was led by Bagrat Galstanyan, the head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The opposition 'Tavush for the Homeland' movement said the crowd planned to call on Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan to respond to the remarks made by the leaders of Turkey and Azerbaijan against Armenia.
Earlier, Baku demanded Yerevan to apologise for committing 'massacres' in the town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1992, while Turkey's leader had called for 'discarding groundless memories' of the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Yerevan law enforcement called on protesters 'not to break the law and obey the lawful demands of the police', adding that 'any unlawful behavior will be punished accordingly'.
Protests calling for Pashinyan to resign came as he conducted border talks with Azerbaijan and made certain territorial concessions. Last month, four villages - Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Ghizilhajili - were transferred to Baku.
The PM himself said that he would not comply with the protesters' demands to suspend the border delimitation process, warning that 'war will break out' if he did not continue.
Head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, from the area of the border villages, has led the protests, and said that opposition factions would initiate impeachment proceedings. The 'Tavush for the Homeland Movement' has also nominated Galstanya himself as PM.
The border talks began at the conclusion of the long-running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan retook control of the breakaway territory, a separatist area governed by ethnic Armenians, in September 2023.
It followed what Baku called a 'counter-terrorist operation' in the region, which Yerevan described as a 'large-scale aggression'. Subsequently, Nagorno-Karabakh's government said the self-declared republic would cease to exist by January 2024, while many ethnic Armenians left the area.
Protesters clash with police at mass rally near Foreign Ministry in Yerevan
A mass rally against Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other members of the country’s government turned into a clash between protesters and police near the Foreign Ministry building in Yerevan on Friday.
Footage features demonstrators with smoke flares chanting slogans outside the ministry and clashing with police officers. Several protesters can be seen detained during the rally.
According to the media reports, 26 people were detained outside the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
The rally was led by Bagrat Galstanyan, the head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The opposition 'Tavush for the Homeland' movement said the crowd planned to call on Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan to respond to the remarks made by the leaders of Turkey and Azerbaijan against Armenia.
Earlier, Baku demanded Yerevan to apologise for committing 'massacres' in the town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1992, while Turkey's leader had called for 'discarding groundless memories' of the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Yerevan law enforcement called on protesters 'not to break the law and obey the lawful demands of the police', adding that 'any unlawful behavior will be punished accordingly'.
Protests calling for Pashinyan to resign came as he conducted border talks with Azerbaijan and made certain territorial concessions. Last month, four villages - Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Ghizilhajili - were transferred to Baku.
The PM himself said that he would not comply with the protesters' demands to suspend the border delimitation process, warning that 'war will break out' if he did not continue.
Head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, from the area of the border villages, has led the protests, and said that opposition factions would initiate impeachment proceedings. The 'Tavush for the Homeland Movement' has also nominated Galstanya himself as PM.
The border talks began at the conclusion of the long-running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan retook control of the breakaway territory, a separatist area governed by ethnic Armenians, in September 2023.
It followed what Baku called a 'counter-terrorist operation' in the region, which Yerevan described as a 'large-scale aggression'. Subsequently, Nagorno-Karabakh's government said the self-declared republic would cease to exist by January 2024, while many ethnic Armenians left the area.
A mass rally against Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other members of the country’s government turned into a clash between protesters and police near the Foreign Ministry building in Yerevan on Friday.
Footage features demonstrators with smoke flares chanting slogans outside the ministry and clashing with police officers. Several protesters can be seen detained during the rally.
According to the media reports, 26 people were detained outside the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
The rally was led by Bagrat Galstanyan, the head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The opposition 'Tavush for the Homeland' movement said the crowd planned to call on Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan to respond to the remarks made by the leaders of Turkey and Azerbaijan against Armenia.
Earlier, Baku demanded Yerevan to apologise for committing 'massacres' in the town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1992, while Turkey's leader had called for 'discarding groundless memories' of the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Yerevan law enforcement called on protesters 'not to break the law and obey the lawful demands of the police', adding that 'any unlawful behavior will be punished accordingly'.
Protests calling for Pashinyan to resign came as he conducted border talks with Azerbaijan and made certain territorial concessions. Last month, four villages - Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli and Ghizilhajili - were transferred to Baku.
The PM himself said that he would not comply with the protesters' demands to suspend the border delimitation process, warning that 'war will break out' if he did not continue.
Head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, from the area of the border villages, has led the protests, and said that opposition factions would initiate impeachment proceedings. The 'Tavush for the Homeland Movement' has also nominated Galstanya himself as PM.
The border talks began at the conclusion of the long-running conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan retook control of the breakaway territory, a separatist area governed by ethnic Armenians, in September 2023.
It followed what Baku called a 'counter-terrorist operation' in the region, which Yerevan described as a 'large-scale aggression'. Subsequently, Nagorno-Karabakh's government said the self-declared republic would cease to exist by January 2024, while many ethnic Armenians left the area.