On Friday, police detained several individuals, including an opposition parliamentarian, during protests in an Armenian border village on Friday. The protests were part of a broader movement against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to cede four border areas to Azerbaijan.
In Yerevan, demonstrators continued to block streets and major highways leading out of the city, disrupting traffic to oppose the territorial concessions, which Pashinyan’s government claims are necessary for the demarcation of Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. Protesters, including those using heavy vehicles, were dispersed by police, who reopened the roads.
Tensions escalated when a prominent national highway north of Yerevan was blocked for approximately an hour in the afternoon. The blockade drew the participation of two legislators from the primary opposition Hayastan alliance, including Artur Khachatrian. Khachatrian was forcibly taken into custody after a heated exchange with a regional police chief and driven to a nearby police station in Hrazdan. He was released a few hours later after speaking with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service by phone and condemned the police’s actions, claiming, “Citizens were exercising their constitutional right.”
On the same highway earlier in the day, police stopped and searched several trucks headed to Yerevan, citing security concerns, although details were not further elaborated.
The epicenter of the protests later shifted to Kirants, one of the four villages in the northern Tavush province close to the areas designated for handover. Here, hundreds of villagers, supported by residents from other regions, blocked a key section of the highway for the sixth consecutive day. Protesters intercepted and held several government vehicles they believed were there to begin geodetic and demining operations in preparation for the land transfer.
Despite the efforts of a special police unit and the arrival of senior officers who attempted to negotiate, the protesters vehemently refused to let the vehicles leave. Bishop Bagrat Galstanian, leading the protests for the Tavush diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, managed to persuade the crowd to eventually allow the evacuation. Speaking through a megaphone, Galstanian inspired the protesters by saying, “You have shown that you are the real masters of this country. This must happen all over Armenia. Let them see the victory of the Kirants people in all corners of Armenia.”
Earlier in the evening, Tavush Governor Hayk Ghalumian visited the scene, stating that the exact boundaries of the delimited Armenian-Azerbaijani border in Kirants were still uncertain, implying the residents’ property rights were unclear. Galstanian sharply criticized the government’s statements as deceitful, urging the crowd, “Dear people, these are complete lies, misleading lies. These people are liars, literally liars. They have lied to you for two years. Please do not succumb to that.”
The government, meanwhile, reported that Armenian and Azerbaijani officials had already marked approximately one-third of the border areas intended for handover, establishing 28 border posts in those sections.
