“The prime minister presented the current process in detail and emphasized that the government is familiar with all the problems,” the Armenian government said in a statement on Pashinian’s meeting with the mayor and a dozen other residents of the village of Kirants.
Pashinian and other officials present at the meeting urged them to “start works on the ground and find solutions to outstanding issues through joint discussions,” it added without elaborating.
The Kirants representatives looked unhappy and were reluctant to talk to the press as they emerged from the government building. Some of them said only that they did not hear anything new from Pashinian.
Gegham Nazarian, an opposition parliamentarian who spoke to them privately, likewise claimed afterwards that Pashinian “said nothing new.”
“The residents were left in uncertainty and panic again,” Nazarian told reporters. “People are already thinking about the worst because none of the demands, requests or reasonable proposals made by the village of Kirants were accepted.”
In his words, Pashinian admitted that even his latest concessions to Baku will not guarantee the security of Kirants and nearby communities.
Kirants is one of the four Tavush villages adjacent to border areas that are due to be handed over to Azerbaijan as part of what the government calls the start of the demarcation of the Armenian- Azerbaijani border. Hundreds of villagers joined by other residents of Tavush and other parts of Armenia have been blocking a local section of a key national highway since April 20. Some of them clashed with riot police on Friday.
Armenia - Protesters block the Gyumri-Yerevan highway, April 28, 2024.
People, among them opposition politicians and activists, continued to briefly block roads in Yerevan and other parts of the country over the weekend and on Monday in a show of solidarity with the Kirants protesters led by Bishop Bagrat Galstanian, the head of the Tavush diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. In Gyumri, local antigovernment activists organized a car procession for the same purpose.
Meanwhile, law-enforcement authorities pressed criminal charges against six protesters arrested following violent incidents that happened last week.
Three of them reportedly clashed with the driver of a military vehicle that reportedly tried to ram into a crowd blocking another Tavush highway. Videos posted on social media showed the driver jumping onto the crowd from the roof of the SUV belonging to the Yerkrapah militia led by Sasun Mikaelian, a political ally of Pashinian.
The driver was not prosecuted for his actions. The authorities indicted the three protesters instead, saying that they illegally stopped the vehicle and damaged its windscreen and one of the wheels.
The three other detainees were charged with “hooliganism” stemming from a separate incident that occurred in the provincial town of Noyemberian. Armenian opposition leaders reject the accusations as politically motivated, saying that the authorities are trying to stifle the protests.