Armenia PM Nikol Pashinyan accuses army of attempted coup

armenia leader

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has warned of an “attempted military coup”, after the country’s armed forces said he and his cabinet must resign. The army “must obey the people and elected authorities,” he told thousands of supporters in the capital Yerevan. The opposition staged a rival rally.The army has been angered by the PM’s sacking of top military commanders. Mr Pashinyan has faced mass protests after losing last year’s conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but which had been controlled by ethnic Armenians since a 1994 truce. During the bloody six-weeks of fighting late last year, Azerbaijan not only recaptured areas around the enclave but also took the key town of Shusha inside it.Under the Russian-brokered deal that emerged shortly afterwards, Azerbaijan keeps the areas it has captured. Hundreds of Russian peacekeepers are deployed in the disputed area.(BBC)…[+]