FILE - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Thousands of protesters gathered Thursday, May 9, 2024, in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his government's decision to hand over control of border villages to Armenia's long-time rival Azerbaijan. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP, File)Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, left, Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu, center, and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan pose for a photo prior to their talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, May 10, 2024. (Vladimir Tretyakov/NUR.KZ via AP)Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, left, Kazakhstan Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu, center, and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan pose for a photo prior to their talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, May 10, 2024. (Vladimir Tretyakov/NUR.KZ via AP)
FILE - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Union at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Thousands of protesters gathered Thursday, May 9, 2024, in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his government's decision to hand over control of border villages to Armenia's long-time rival Azerbaijan. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Pool Photo via AP, File)
YEREVAN – Thousands of protesters in Armenia angered by the government's decision to hand over control of some border villages to Azerbaijan demonstrated on Friday in the center of the Armenian capital for a second day to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The rally in Yerevan ended in the evening without incident, but the high-ranking Armenian Apostolic Church cleric who is leading the protests vowed that they would continue.
Recommended Videos
Armenia said in April that it would cede control of some border areas to Azerbaijan. That decision followed the lightning military campaign in September in which Azerbaijan's military forced ethnic Armenian separatist authorities in the Karabakh region to capitulate.
Ethnic Armenian fighters backed by Armenian forces had taken control of Karabakh in 1994 at the end of a six-year war. Azerbaijan regained some of the territory in fighting in 2020 that ended in an armistice that brought a Russian peacekeeper force into the region.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the protests' leader, has called on them to “engage in peaceful acts of disobedience.”
Pashinyan has said Armenia needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities. Many residents of Armenia’s border regions have resisted the demarcation effort, seeing it as Azerbaijan’s encroachment on areas they consider their own.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
