{"id":3417,"date":"2020-12-22T13:50:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T13:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=142240"},"modified":"2020-12-22T13:50:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T13:50:38","slug":"thousands-protest-as-armenian-opposition-presses-for-pashinian-to-resign-as-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/22\/thousands-protest-as-armenian-opposition-presses-for-pashinian-to-resign-as-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands Protest As Armenian Opposition Presses For Pashinian To Resign As Prime Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wsw\">\n<p>YEREVAN &#8212; Thousands of people have poured into the Armenian capital\u2019s main square as the opposition continues its campaign to pressure Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to quit over last month\u2019s cease-fire deal with Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n<p>The protesters gathered in Republic Square on December 22 and chanted slogans such as, \u201cNikol, traitor\u201d as riot police guarded the prime minister\u2019s offices nearby.<\/p>\n<p>Another group of demonstrators walked into another building that houses several government ministries and briefly scuffled with security forces there, while a major highway was reportedly blocked by opposition supporters in the afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders of a coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties have vowed to hold daily demonstrations until Pashinian agrees to hand over power to a \u201ctransitional\u201d government tasked with organizing snap parliamentary elections within a year.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wsw__embed\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/a\/armenia-mourns-after-conflict-with-azerbaijan\/31013420.html\" title=\"Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads\" class=\"img-wrap\"><span class=\"thumb thumb16_9\"><\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/gdb.rferl.org\/83cfcb90-4f12-43d5-b439-2edf1e032489_cx0_cy10_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg\" alt=\"Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads\" \/><\/p>\n<p> <img data-src=\"https:\/\/gdb.rferl.org\/83cfcb90-4f12-43d5-b439-2edf1e032489_cx0_cy10_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg\" alt=\"Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads\" \/><\/span><\/a> <span class=\"label label--media label--inverted m-l-sm\">Photo Gallery:<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"title title--media title--inverted m-l-sm\">Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads<\/h4>\n<div class=\"c-lightbox__intro-source\">\n<div class=\"c-lightbox__intro-content\">\n<p>Scenes of grief and political upheaval across Armenia through three days of mourning for those killed during the recent conflict with Azerbaijan<\/p>\n<aside class=\"share js-share--expandable c-lightbox__sharing\" data-counter-separator=\".\" data-counter-url=\"\/a\/armenia-mourns-after-conflict-with-azerbaijan\/31013420.html\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Vazgen Manukian, who has been nominated by the opposition National Salvation Movement to head such a government, urged Armenian armed forces and police to stop carrying out Pashinian\u2019s orders and \u201cjoin the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSwitch to our side so that we solve the issue today,\u201d Manukian told the crowd on Republic Square.<\/p>\n<p>Pashinian earlier on December 22 made clear that he has no intention to leave office and portrayed the anti-government protests as a revolt by the country\u2019s \u201celites\u201d who had lost their \u201cprivileges\u201d when he swept to power amid nationwide protests in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The prime minister has come under fire since agreeing to a Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan that took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n<p>His opponents want him to quit over what they say was his disastrous handling of the conflict that handed Azerbaijan swaths of territory that ethnic Armenians had controlled since the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>They also say Pashinian is uncapable of dealing with the new security challenges Armenia is facing.<\/p>\n<p>Calls for his resignation have been backed by President Armen Sarkisian, the head of Armenia&#8217;s Apostolic Church, as well as other prominent public figures in the country and the Armenian diaspora.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2020\/12\/22\/thousands-protest-as-armenian-opposition-presses-for-pashinian-to-resign-as-prime-minister\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YEREVAN \u2014 Thousands of people have poured into the Armenian capital\u2019s main square as the opposition continues its campaign to pressure Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to quit over\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,4,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3418,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions\/3418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}