Armenia detains critics of Karabakh peace deal

YEREVAN: Armenia on Thursday arrested 10 leading opposition figures for violently protesting against a Russian-brokered peace deal that ended weeks of fighting with Azerbaijan and sparked fury with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Prosecutors announced the arrests hours ahead of a fresh demonstration by the opposition against the accord that sees Armenia give up swathes of disputed territory in Nagorno-Karabakh to their long-standing foe.
More than 3,000 people converged on the streets of Yerevan Thursday evening, marching toward the state security service building, which was cordoned off by police, and shouting “Nikol the traitor” and “Nikol resign.”
“Pashinyan has sold our homeland and now is trying to stay in power,” Naira Zoghrabyan, a deputy from the Prosperous Armenia party, shouted to the crowd.
“Nikol, resign peacefully while it’s still possible,” Zoghrabyan said at the protest, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.
The 10 opposition politicians face up to a decade behind bars for their role in “illegal violent mass disorder,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Protesters stormed and ransacked government buildings on Tuesday over Pashinyan’s agreement to end the fighting and took to the streets again in their thousands on Wednesday to demand the government resign.
Referring to the arrests of at least two of its members, Lilit Galstyan from the opposition Dashnaktsutyun party said: “We consider this to be an act of political persecution.”
“This government has no moral right to stay in power,” Galstyan added.
Pashinyan earlier in the week accused the protesters who overran government buildings of being controlled by “oligarchs who were looting our army, our soldiers, our country for 20 years.”
The 45-year-old former newspaper editor, who swept to power in 2018 promising to root out endemic corruption, denounced the demonstrators for stirring up unrest when security services were on the frontlines.
But residents of Nagorno-Karabakh at the demonstration on Thursday said they were outraged by the peace deal, having been forced to seek refuge in Armenia due to the fighting.
“We lost our homes. Who will answer for this? We are in despair,” said 39-year-old Siranush Sarkisyan at the protest in Yerevan.
Slavik Esayan, 58, who was also forced to flee his home as fighting raged between separatists and Azerbaijan, said he would not return to Nagorno-Karabakh while there were no security guarantees.
“The authorities of Armenia and Artsakh must be held responsible for this,” he said using the Armenian name for the breakaway province of Azerbaijan.
Fighting between Armenian separatists in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and Baku’s army erupted in late September and raged for six weeks, leaving more than 1,400 dead and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
Critics of Pashinyan issued an ultimatum for him to resign before midnight Wednesday or face a massive protest movement after he agreed in the early hours of Tuesday to halt the fighting with Azerbaijan for control of the disputed region.
The deal stipulates that Azerbaijan’s forces will retain control over areas seized in the fighting, including the second-largest town of Shusha, while Armenia agreed to a timetable to withdraw from large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russian peacekeepers began deploying to Nagorno-Karabakh on Wednesday as part of the terms of the accord and took control of a key transport artery connecting Armenia to the disputed province.
Russian military officials said the mission consisting of nearly 2,000 troops would put in place 16 observation posts in mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor.
Fighting between ex-Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists raged despite several cease-fires brokered by France, Russia and the United States that were left in tatters following mutual allegations of violations hours after they were due to take effect.
Azerbaijan has been pushing for Ankara’s involvement in a settlement and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week his country would jointly supervise the cease-fire with Russia.
Turkey, a staunch ally of Azerbaijan, was widely accused by Western countries, Russia and Armenia of dispatching mercenaries from Syria to bolster Azerbaijan’s army.
Russia has thrown cold water on Ankara’s ambitions to play a key role in the peacekeeping mission and on Thursday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Turkey would instead monitor the mission from an observation center on Azerbaijan’s territory.
“No peacekeeping units of the Turkish Republic will be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh,” Lavrov said.

Armenia detains critics of Karabakh peace deal