By Shoghik Galstian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on May 7 accused the organizers of continuing protests against his territorial concessions to Azerbaijan of trying to provoke another Armenian-Azerbaijani war with the aim of toppling him.
Pashinyan claimed that Azerbaijan will invade Armenia if he bows to their demands to halt the handover of key border areas to Baku.
“If the process is stopped, a war will break out,” he told a news conference. “I believe that this is [the protest leaders’] goal.”
“The forces that are demanding a halt to the border delimitation will do, with the help of some external forces, everything so that more territories of Armenia are occupied and use that for causing political changes in Armenia,” he said, adding they want to install a “puppet government.”
Pashinyan spoke as hundreds of protesters led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan continued to march to Yerevan from the northern Tavush province that has included the border areas in question since the early 1990s. Many residents of adjacent Tavush residents are also strongly opposed to the unilateral land handover, citing serious security risks.
