The government officially announced the unilateral concessions on Friday right after a fresh round of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on the delimitation of the long border between the two South Caucasus states.
The four areas used to be occupied by small Azerbaijani villages captured by Armenian forces in 1991-1992. For its part, Azerbaijan seized at the time large swathes of agricultural land belonging to several Tavush villages. None of that land will be given back to Armenia under the terms of the preliminary border deal reached on Friday.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian defended the deal welcomed by Western powers, saying that it will help to prevent another war with Azerbaijan. However, many residents of the Tavush villages close to the contested border areas are strongly opposed to it, saying that they would lose access to their existing agricultural land, have trouble communicating with the rest of the country and be far more vulnerable to Azerbaijani armed attacks.
The Armenian opposition groups have also condemned Pashinian’s latest concessions to Baku, They argue that the areas in question are strategically located along one of the two main Armenian highways leading to the Georgian border as well as the pipeline supplying Russian natural gas to Armenia via Georgia.
Azerbaijan would gain control of a section of that highway adjacent to the Tavush village of Kirants as a result of the planned Armenian troop withdrawal. Scores of residents of Kirants and several other border communities rallied there early on Saturday in a bid to scuttle the land handover to Baku. They were joined by Bishop Bagrat Galstanian, the outspoken head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
“The delimitation process must take place in a comprehensive, package manner, with clear rules and maps, in accordance with Armenia’s laws, through a referendum, and with international guarantees,” Galstanian insisted on Monday.
The protesters unblocked the road section on Saturday night after Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian agreed to meet with the heads of the village administrations on Monday. They blocked it again the following morning amid reports that the Armenian military is about to start demining the border areas in preparation for their handover to Azerbaijan. The military did not comment on those reports.
“They told to us to open the road so that they give us an answer on Monday,” one woman from Kirants told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But they fooled us. We woke up this morning and witnessed another incident. That’s why we don’t trust in their words anymore.”
“We will keep spending nights here,” said another protester. “For a couple of times, police forces came here to try to convince us to reopen the road, but that obviously hasn’t happened.”
There were strong indications of unfolding demining work outside the nearby village of Voskepar on Monday. A group of angry villagers confronted military personnel who appeared to be trying to clear a contested area next to a 7th century Armenian church of landmines. They demanded an immediate halt to the apparent demining. Bishop Galstanian also arrived at the scene, effectively urging the military to defy Pashinian’s withdrawal orders.
Riot police cordoned off the church to keep Voskepar residents and other protesters from approaching it and disrupting the mine clearance seen as a preparation for the area’s handover to Azerbaijan. The tense standoff there continued for a few hours, with the protesters eventually given access to the church.