In what critics of the Armenian government denounced as an illegal blockade, only people living in the village of Kirants were allowed to enter or leave the community that has been the epicenter of angry protests against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s decision to cede four disputed border areas that have been part of Tavush since the early 1990s.
Those areas are adjacent to four Armenian villages. The impact of their planned handover would be particularly serious on Kirants, which is expected to lose not only much of its agricultural land but also some territory inside the village itself.
Hundreds of riot police cleared a protest camp just outside Kirants early on Thursday, arresting three dozen people in the process. The Armenian Interior Ministry said the police are “performing enhanced service” to allow relevant authorities to clear the adjacent area of landmines and carry out “geodetic measurements” in preparation for the handover. It said this is done for safety reasons.
The ministry declined to clarify why the villagers but not outsiders are allowed to travel to and from Kirants despite the alleged security risks. The chief of the Tavush police, Artur Mkrtchian also gave no explanation for the selective approach.
“I can’t give a reason,” Mkrtchian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “We just carry out service. We have a written request from the Defense Ministry.”
Critics believe that the main purpose of cordoning off the restive village is to prevent other people from reigniting the protests there. The latter include three protest leaders: Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian, head of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, opposition lawmaker Garnik Danielian and Yerevan-based activist Suren Petrosian. They as well as journalists were again unable to reach Kirants on Friday.
“The mine clearance is being carried out not inside the village but outside it,” Galstanian told reporters. “This is a just an excuse to ban some people from entering and leaving [Kirants] for political reasons.”
While insisting that the unprecedented blockade is legal, the Interior Ministry failed to cite any concrete legal provisions allowing it. Gevorg Danielian, a former justice minister critical of the Armenian government, insisted that there are no such legal grounds. He argued, in particular, that an Armenian law on the police does not provide for any “enhanced service.”
“It is not allowed to blockade [settlements] whatever they may call that,” Danielian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. He said the authorities can only cordon off the demined area rather than the village as a whole.
The police reopened all roads to Kirants at 7 p.m. local time. A large number of police and military vehicles were seen leaving the area shortly afterwards.
Earlier in day, the Armenian military announced that it will carry out “blasting work” at a secure site 2.5 kilometers north of Kirtans at 6:20 p.m. It was presumably due to blow up landmines collected by its sappers. Neither Kirants residents nor journalists working outside the village heard any explosions at that time.
Pashinian has said that the unilateral territorial concessions are necessary for preventing Azerbaijani military aggression against Armenia. The protest leaders maintain that Pashinian’s government is on the contrary encouraging Baku to demand more territory from Armenia.