Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced his resignation so that a new parliament can be elected early in the South Caucasus Republic. “I will resign in April,” said the Prime Minister yesterday. But he will remain in office until the vote. The election is scheduled for June 20, to lead the country out of a domestic political crisis.
Since the end of the fighting for Nagorno-Karabakh in November, Pashinyan has been under considerable pressure. Many compatriots blame him for the loss of territory in the conflict region. They repeatedly called for his resignation during mass protests.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan escalated in the autumn. More than 6,000 people were killed in the six-week fighting that ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement. In the war from September 27 to November 9, the neighboring country Azerbaijan reclaimed large parts of the territory in Nagorno-Karabakh that had been lost in the early 1990s.
Pashinyan promised to accept the election result in the event of a defeat. If the voters do not approve him, „he and his team will hand over power to whoever the people voted for,“ he said today. If he wins, “we will serve you better than before”.
