Armenia

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s prime minister said Friday he was ready to discuss the possibility of holding an early parliamentary election, but rejected opposition demands to step down over his handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

YEREVAN (Reuters) - Opposition demonstrators blocked streets in Armenia’s capital on Tuesday to mark the start of a protest campaign after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ignored their call to step down over a ceasefire deal struck with Azerbaijan.

Hundreds chanted “Nikol, traitor” and “Armenia without Nikol” in the streets of Yerevan, answering an opposition call to protest after a deadline of midday Tuesday set by the opposition for Pashinyan to quit passed with him still in power.

YEREVAN, November 21. /TASS/: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu said that Armenia felt Russia’s support during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. A fragment of the meeting between Pashinyan and Shoigu was published on the website of the Armenian Prime Minister.

"I would like to note that during the war, we have always felt the support of the Russian Federation, the President, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, your personal support, and I want to thank you for that," Pashinyan said.

YEREVAN, November 21. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu at a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Armenian Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunyan in Yerevan said that Russia intends to prevent further bloodshed in Nagorno-Karabakh. A fragment of the meeting was published on Saturday on the website of the Prime Minister of Armenia.

YEREVAN, Nov 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan resigned from his post in a sign of political fall-out in the ex-Soviet republic after a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that locked in territorial gains for Azerbaijan.

Mnatsakanyan, whose departure was announced Monday by the ministry’s spokeswoman on its Facebook page, had held the position since May 2018.

YEREVAN, November 14. / TASS /: Armenian National Security Service detained its former head, the leader of the Rodina party, Artur Vanetsyan on the suspicion of usurping power and preparing the assassination of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Vanetsyan's lawyer Lusine Sahakyan wrote on her Facebookpage on Saturday.

"Today Artur Vanetsyan was invited to the Investigative Department of the National Security Service and detained. The authorities charged him based on false suspicions of usurping power and preparing the murder of Nikol Pashinyan," she wrote.

MOSCOW/YELPIN, Armenia (Reuters) - France and the United States are expected to send diplomats to Moscow soon to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia said on Thursday, two days after the Kremlin deployed troops to the ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan to secure a truce.

The arrival on Tuesday of the peacekeepers to oversee the ceasefire between Azeri troops and ethnic Armenian forces in the enclave extends Russia’s military footprint among the former Soviet republics it views as its strategic back yard.

YEREVAN, November 11. /TASS/: Armenia had to sign an agreement to end hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh in order to prevent a military collapse, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Wednesday during a live broadcast on his Facebook page.

"If the fighting had continued, there was a very high probability that Stepanakert, Martuni, and Askeran would have fallen. Subsequently, thousands of our soldiers could have been surrounded, that is, a collapse would have happened. We had to sign that agreement," he noted.

YEREVAN/BAKU (Reuters) - Thousands of Armenian demonstrators, chanting “Nikol is a traitor”, demanded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resign on Wednesday over a ceasefire that secured territorial advances for Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh after six weeks of fighting.

The ceasefire, announced on Tuesday, ended the worst fighting in the region in decades, and has been celebrated as a victory in Azerbaijan. Pashinyan has called it a disaster but said he had no choice but to sign it to stave off a defeat.

YEREVAN, November 10. /TASS/: Armenia’s Parliament Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan was injured by participants of protests staged early on Tuesday in downtown Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during online streaming on his Facebook account.

"Some thugs beat Ararat Mirzoyan. Now he is undergoing surgery, his life is not under threat," Pashinyan said.