Armenia: some 300 opposition demonstrators arrested in Yerevan

The police arrested Tuesday, May 17 in Armenia nearly 300 opposition demonstrators who wanted to block streets in the capital, Yerevan, the scene of demonstrations against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian for a month.

Read alsoArmenia: several arrests during new anti-government demonstrations

Since mid-April, opposition parties have regularly called for rallies demanding the resignation of the head of government, accusing him of his management of the conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorny Karabakh region.

Tuesday morning, as often for a month, hundreds of demonstrators tried to block arteries in the center of Yerevan, according to an AFP journalist, leading to the intervention of the police.

The latter indicated in a press release that 286 people had been arrested “

”.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have gone to war twice, in the 1990s and then in 2020, for control of Nagorny Karabakh, a separatist territory in Azerbaijan but populated by Armenians.

Six weeks of conflict in the fall of 2020 claimed some 6,500 lives and led to significant territorial losses for Armenia.

Since then, a Russian-brokered ceasefire has been established under the aegis of Russian peacekeepers.

Read alsoArmenia: 200 arrests during opposition demonstrations

For the opposition, the Armenian military defeat of 2020 is a national humiliation and it has since been trying to obtain the departure of Nikol Pashinyan.

But he won with his party early elections last year, consolidating his power.

This year, the Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities have multiplied the signals with a view to the formal opening of peace negotiations, so much so that the Armenian opponents accuse the Prime Minister of wanting to give in to the demands of their neighbor and enemy.