YEREVAN, Feb 25, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
on Thursday denounced “an attempted military coup” and called on supporters
to take to the streets, after the country’s top brass demanded his
resignation.
“I consider the statement of the General Staff of the Armed Forces an
attempted military coup. I invite all of our supporters to Republic Square
right now,” he wrote on Facebook, referring to a central square in the
capital Yerevan.
Pashinyan also fired the head of the general staff Onik Gasparyan, after
his office released a statement demanding the prime minister and his cabinet
step down after the sacking of deputy chief of staff Tigran Khachatryan on
Wednesday.
Khachatryan had ridiculed claims by Pashinyan that Iskander missiles
supplied by Russia — Armenia’s main military ally — had failed to hit
targets during last year’s war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The statement said the firing was made “exclusively on the basis of the
personal feelings and ambitions” of Pashinyan.
Pashinyan and his government “are not capable of taking adequate
decisions,” the statement said, denouncing “attacks by the authorities aimed
at discrediting the Armed Forces.”
Accused of mishandling the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh,
Pashinyan has resisted pressure to step down since November, when he signed a
Russian-brokered peace deal that ended six weeks of fighting that had claimed
some 6,000 lives.
Under the deal Armenia ceded to Azerbaijan swathes of the region’s
territories.
Opposition parties have since staged mass rallies demanding his
resignation and were also making calls for supporters to rally on Thursday.