Opposition Leader Vanetsyan Begins Sit-in, Calls on Pashinyan to Resign

The sit-in comes in response to a major speech Pashinyan gave to parliament last week, in which he said that Armenia should “lower the bar a little on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and ensure greater international consolidation around Armenia and Artsakh (Karabakh).”

Pashinyan’s speech fueled mounting concern, in both Armenia and Karabakh, that Yerevan could be preparing to cede control of the territory to Baku during peace negotiations — and prompted a quick and furious backlash from leaders across Armenia’s fractured political spectrum.

Among other responses, the Karabakh parliament last week issued an extraordinary, unanimous rebuke of Pashinyan’s administration, “demanding that the Armenian authorities abandon their current catastrophic position” in peace talks with Azerbaijan.

On Monday morning, two veterans of the 2020 war in and around Karabakh announced that they would be joining Vanetsyan’s sit-in and launching an indefinite hunger strike.

“The purpose of the hunger strike is to draw the attention of the representatives of our generation to the situation around Artsakh,” wrote one of the men on Facebook.

Reports have emerged that the police have prevented the demonstrators from setting up tents or heaters on the square, culminating Sunday night in a scuffle between protesters and police that led to several arrests. In response, Vanetsyan said the police were acting “out of fear.”