The Armenian prime minister accused the armed forces of an attempted coup against his government after senior military officials signed a letter calling for his resignation, in an escalation of the political crisis triggered by Armenia’s defeat in the war in Nagorno-Karabakh last year.
Tensions between Nikol Pashinyan and the military erupted in open conflict on Thursday, when the chief of staff of the armed forces, Onik Gasparyan, and other senior commanders accused the prime minister of taking Armenia “to the edge of collapse”.
In response, Pashinyan fired Gasparyan and called on his own supporters to demonstrate in Yerevan’s Republic Square, the site of the popular revolution that brought him to power three years ago. A video broadcast showed Pashinyan in a suit arriving at the square on Thursday and addressing his supporters through a megaphone.
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“The army cannot be involved in the political process,” said Pashinyan in a speech. “The army must obey only the people and the political leadership elected by the people.”
There were no reports of military personnel being mobilized to confiscate government buildings or to topple Pashinyan. However, discontent with the prime minister grew over Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh last year. As part of a Russian-mediated ceasefire, Armenia was forced to make painful concessions to Azerbaijan, handing over cities and towns it had won in a war after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but populated by ethnic Armenians.
Opponents of the ceasefire called it a capitulation and invaded Pashinyan’s parliament and residence the night it was signed. Protests have escalated since then and Armenia is at an impasse, with the government paralyzed, but the prime minister ignoring calls for early elections.
On Thursday, Pashinyan told the Armenians that he had “thought of resigning”, but added that “the people will decide whether I will resign or not”. Thousands of his supporters marched after him through the streets of Praça da República. There were clashes while the march went through a counter-protest organized by the opposition, but no serious confrontation took place.
Earlier this week, Pashinyan fired Tiran Khacharyan, Gasparyan’s first deputy, for ridiculing the prime minister’s claims that the Russian-provided Iskander missiles used in the conflict, for the most part, did not explode on contact.
In response, Gasparyan, along with his deputies and other senior commanders, signed an open letter on Thursday saying: “The prime minister and the government are no longer able to make reasonable decisions in this critical and fatal situation for the people Armenian. Given the current situation, the Armenian Armed Forces demand the resignation of the Prime Minister and the government, while warning that they refrain from using force against the people whose children died in defense of the homeland and Artsakh [the Armenian word for the Nagorno-Karabakh territories]. “
The prime minister reportedly responded by dismissing Gasparyan and called his supporters to the streets. “I regard the headquarters statement as an attempted military coup,” wrote Pashinyan in a statement on Facebook.
In his speech on Thursday, Pashinyan called for an “end to velvet”, a reference to the lack of violence or reprisals in the country’s 2018 revolution. In his comments, he threatened opposition leaders with arrest, saying: “There is a line. If you cross, you will be arrested. “
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, whose role is largely symbolic, called for moderation on all sides. “Reaffirming the role of the presidency as a balancing act, I am taking urgent steps to defuse tensions and find ways to resolve the situation peacefully,” he said. He had previously asked Pashinyan to step down to trigger early elections.
The opposition was supported by former President Robert Kocharyan, who on Thursday asked Armenians to support the military against the government. “The authorities who lost the war and surrendered the land must go,” he said. In the evening, members of the opposition had blocked a central avenue in Yerevan and reported that they were setting up tents.