By Felix Light
YEREVAN (Reuters) – Several hundred protesters gathered in the Armenian capital on Wednesday to demand that the government to do more to support ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh after the breakaway region was forced into a humiliating surrender by Azerbaijan.
The protesters, many young, gathered on Republic Square in the heart of Yerevan. Several trucks carrying Armenian troops were also seen in the centre of the capital.
Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that it had halted its offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenian separatist forces there agreed to a ceasefire – whose terms signalled the area would return to Baku’s control.
Armenians, who are Christian, claim a long historical dominance in the area, which they call Artsakh. Azerbaijan, whose inhabitants are mostly Muslim, links its historical identity to the territory too.
Samvel Sargsyan, 21, a student at the Theatre and Cinema University in Yerevan, said Armenia should help Karabakh.
“We need Armenia to join up with Artsakh and fight,” said Sargsyan, who was born in Karabakh’s capital, known to Armenians as Stepanakert and to Azeris as Khankendi.
“Armenians can’t accept another country, another religion. Why should we? Why should Armenia give a part of itself to another nation?”
Sargsyan, who was holding the red, blue and orange flag of Artsakh, said it looked like the end of Armenian Karabakh, but did not want to accept that.
“If we lose Artsakh, we lose Armenia. Because the next step will be Armenia,” he said.
Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that it wanted a “smooth reintegration process” for Karabakh’s Armenians, and rejected Armenian accusations that it wanted to “ethnically cleanse” the region.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who lost the Second Karabakh War to Azerbaijan in 2020 but still won re-election a few months later, was facing calls on Wednesday from some opponents to resign.
Some of those in the square yelled “Artsakh!”, others “Nikol is a traitor!”.
Pashinyan has publicly accused Russia in recent months of not doing enough to support Armenia. He said on Tuesday that unidentified forces were talking about a coup in Yerevan.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
