Armenian Prime Minister Attempts to Fire General

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in political crisis (Wikimedia Commons).

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan fired General Onik Gasparian on February 25 after demands that he step down from office due to his handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, Armenian President Armen Sarkisian refused to sign Gasparian’s dismissal, claiming the firing was unconstitutional. Pashinyan was instead given five days to resubmit the dismissal order, which he did immediately. Sarkisian has until March 2 to either sign the order or submit it for review by the Constitutional Court. 

Pashinyan has been in hot water since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in November 2020. Fighting lasted for six weeks between Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenians residing in the territory internationally recognized as Azerbaijan’s. The peace deal, brokered by Russia, gave significant territorial gains to Azerbaijan, angering many Armenians. Thousands took to the streets to demand Pashinyan’s resignation for agreeing to such a deal. 

However, Pashinyan retains support in Armenia, leading a rally of thousands on February 25 denouncing the army’s demand for his resignation. In a Facebook broadcast, he called the army’s demand for his resignation an attempted coup: “The most important problem now is to keep the power in the hands of the people, because I consider what is happening to be a military coup.” 

A rival rally took place in Yerevan with several thousand supporters, in which opposition leader Vazgen Manukyan claimed the government was trying to turn the people against the army. 

Turkey, who backed Azerbaijan in the conflict, condemned the Armenian army’s call for Pashinyan’s resignation, denouncing it as a coup and stating that it was unacceptable for the military to call for the resignation of a democratically elected leader. Russia also expressed alarm at the political crisis, stating that it must be solved peacefully and constitutionally.