By Gayane Saribekian and Robert Zargarian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Police made at least 14 arrests on Monday, May 20, as they confronted angry protesters trying to enter an Armenian border village that is losing part of its territory as a result of the Armenian government’s territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.
The village of Kirants remained cordoned off by security forces for the second consecutive day amid continuing preparations for the handover of several of its houses as well as much of its agricultural land and a section of a highway leading to Yerevan. Local residents discovered in the morning three new border posts placed there and masked security personnel guarding them.
“When I left my house I saw a post put in the orchard created by my father, with armed men standing near it,” one of them told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “I got angry and told them to get out of the orchard created by my father.”
The land in and around Kirants is one of four border areas which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration has agreed to cede to Azerbaijan in what it calls a start of the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The areas are also adjacent to three other villages in Armenia’s northern Tavush province.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the prelate of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, emerged as the top leader of protests in the affected communities that broke out following the announcement of the land transfer on April 19. Galstanyan took his campaign to Yerevan where he attracted tens of thousands of demonstrators and demanded Pashinyan’s resignation on May 9.
