Scuffles break out as Armenia protests continue

Minor clashes were reported as demonstrations against Armenia's prime minister continue to take place in Yerevan.

A large crowd of demonstrators calling for the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has gathered at the Security Council building in the capital city of Yerevan on Wednesday morning.

Armenia has been gripped by protests for a month, as the opposition blames Pashinyan for trying to hand over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region to Azerbaijan.

Small scuffles broke out as the crowd marched through the downtown to the Security Council headquarters, according to the news agency RIA-Novosti.

The protesters then surrounded the government building, using the same strategy as during the siege of the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, when the crowd made sure that the opposition MPs could discuss the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh with two deputy foreign ministers.

But this time the police told the demonstrators that the Security Council building was empty, and soon after the protest leaders told their supporters to leave the premises.

MP Aram Vardevanyan, a political coalition from the Armenia Alliance said that the goal of the failed action was to pass the opposition's demands about Nagorno-Karabakh to the members of the Security Council.

Nagorno-Karabakh can't be part of Azerbaijan, and the authorities shouldn't take measures that don't align with Armenia's interests, the opposition MP insisted.

The latest wave of protests began on April 25 after Pashinyan said that the international community wanted Yerevan to lower the bar on its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Armenian PM met Azerbaijan s President Ilham Aliyev last week in Brussels, with the two agreeing to advance discussions on settling their differences on Nagorno-Karabakh.

The neighbors fought a 44 day war over the disputed region in 2020, with Azerbaijan capturing some parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been controlled by Armenians since the early 1990s. Mediation by Moscow led to a ceasefire, with Russian peacekeepers deployed to the area.