Archbishop Bagrat Gastanyan

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan remains in office in defiance of a call by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan for his resignation on 10 May before a massive crowd in Yerevan's Republic Square.

According to one recent report from Armenia, "The police detained citizens conducting civil disobedience in different parts of Yerevan. Among them were also the mother of 2020 Artsakh war hero Arayik Baghdasaryan and the deacon of St. Anna Church in Komitas. The total number of detainees was 48."

(This story includes an embedded 45 minute video. For reasons not clear to me, this struggle has not been reported on either Russia's RT news service nor Iran's PressTV news service.) Following the arrival of the march from the Armenian province of Tavusch to save province from annexation by neighbouring Azerbaijan, Archbishop Bagrat Gastanyan, who led that march, in his address to the assembled crowd, called for the resignation of Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan. The size of the crowd was estimated to be 100,000 . Those who have followed the history of Armenia, particularly since Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power in the US-orchestrated colour revolution of 2018, will understand that this demand for the removal of Pashinyan is well overdue.

On 19 April President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan demanded that neighbouring Armenia surrender to it the territory of its northen-eastern-most province of Tavush. Armenian President Nikola Pashinyan raised no objection and, once more, following a pattern of betrayals which followed his installation as President in the US-orchestrated colour revolution of 2018, acted immediately to use the forces of the Armenian state to facilitate this surrender of territory.