They accused Pashinian of complicity in last year’s Azerbaijani assault on Nagorno-Karabakh and claimed that his speech at a recent session of the UN General Assembly was also tantamount to high treason.
“The leader of the Republic of Armenia or the person holding that post, who is supposed to guarantee the security of our people, demonstrated criminal inaction and … was complicit in the crime committed by Azerbaijan and its president,” Galstanian charged outside the main building of Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General in downtown Yerevan.
A lawyer representing his opposition-backed movement, Hovannes Khudoyan, said that Armenia was obliged to defend Karabakh and its ethnic Armenian residents during the Azerbaijani military offensive of September 2023 which forced them to flee their homeland. Khudoyan cited the Armenian constitution’s indirect reference to a 1989 unification act adopted by the Soviet Armenian and Karabakh legislatures.
Baku regards that reference as a territorial claim to Azerbaijan and says its repeal is a necessary condition for an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty sought by Pashinian. In his September 27 speech, the latter said he will strive to fulfill that demand if Armenia’s Constitutional Court concludes that the treaty contradicts the constitution. Khudoyan claimed that Pashinian thus echoed “enemy propaganda.”
Pashinian has repeatedly blamed Karabakh’s exiled leadership backed by the Armenian opposition for the Azerbaijani takeover of Karabakh. He claimed in June that the authorities in Stepanakert as well as opposition leaders in Yerevan wanted the region’s population to flee to Armenia to topple him.
A deputy chairman of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, Vahagn Aleksanian, echoed that allegation when he reacted to the protesters’ demands for the premier’s prosecution. The prosecutors, who are led by a former legal aide to Pashinian, are bound to reject the demands.
Galstanian organized a similar protest outside the Constitutional Court right after holding a rally in the city’s central Republic Square on Sunday. He and his supporters condemned the court’s judges, mostly installed by Pashinian’s administration, for playing down the legal significance of the constitutional clause resented by Baku.
The outspoken archbishop, who resumed his antigovernment protests on October 2 after a three-month pause, on Wednesday did not shed light on his further actions. On Sunday, he again attracted fewer people than he did in May and June.
Speaking at the weekend rally, Galstanian admitted making “mistakes” during his campaign in response to criticism voiced by some critics of the Armenian government. But he urged supporters to keep fighting for regime change while demonstrating “patience” in what he called a “war of nerves” with the government.