Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Armenia's capital Yerevan on Sunday to protest the government's "concessions" to Azerbaijan following Baku's victory over Karabakh, formerly known as Nagorno-Karabakh.
Opposition parties have accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of plans to give away all of Karabakh to Azerbaijan after he told lawmakers last month that the "international community calls on Armenia to scale down demands on Karabakh."
On Sunday, several thousand opposition supporters gathered in the capital's central Square of France, blocking traffic throughout central Yerevan.
Protesters shouted demands for Pashinian to resign, with many holding placards that read "Karabakh."
Parliament Vice-Speaker and opposition leader Ishkhan Sagatelyan said: "Any political status of Karabakh within Azerbaijan is unacceptable to us."
"Pashinian had betrayed people's trust and must go," he told journalists at the rally, adding that the protest movement "will lead to the overthrow of the government in the nearest future."
Addressing the crowd, he announced, "a large-scale campaign of civil disobedience to begin on Monday."
"I call on everyone to begin strikes. I call on students not to attend classes. Traffic will be fully blocked in central Yerevan."
On Saturday, Armenia's National Security Service warned of "a real threat of mass unrest in the country."
In April, Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met for rare EU-mediated talks in Brussels after which they tasked their foreign ministers to "begin preparatory work for peace talks."
The meeting came after a flare-up in Karabakh on March 25 that saw Azerbaijan capture a strategic village in the area under the Russian peacekeepers' responsibility, killing three separatist troops.
Baku tabled in mid-March its set of framework proposals for the peace agreement that includes both sides' mutual recognition of territorial integrity, meaning Yerevan should agree on Karabakh being part of Azerbaijan.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan sparked controversy at home when he said – commenting on the Azerbaijani proposal – that for Yerevan "the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a territorial issue, but a matter of rights" of the local ethnic-Armenian population.
Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
Clashes erupted on Sept. 27, 2020, with the Armenian army attacking civilians and Azerbaijani forces and violating several humanitarian cease-fire agreements.
During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and around 300 settlements and villages that had been occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.
The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered agreement on Nov. 10, 2020, which was seen as a victory for Azerbaijan and a defeat for Armenia.
In January 2021, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a pact to develop economic ties and infrastructure to benefit the entire region. It also included the establishment of a trilateral working group in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Most recently, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan discussed developments, including a peace deal, with their Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in March.
