Armenia’s PM unveils action plan amid pressure after Karabakh peace deal

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has unveiled an action plan amid pressure to resign over a ‘disastrous’ handling of the conflict with Azerbaijan.

According to Press TV, Pashinyan has rejected calls from opponents and protesters to resign over what they describe as his ill handling of the six-week fighting with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Pashinyan said on Wednesday that the six-month action plan had been designed to ensure the democratic stability of his country.

Under a Russian-brokered peace deal, swaths of territory previously controlled by ethnic Armenians were being handed over to Azerbaijan, whose forces recaptured chunks of territory which Baku lost in an earlier war in the 1990s.

The deal triggered political turmoil in Armenia. Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan was forced to resign.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Armenia is an independent, sovereign state, it has the right to decide its internal affairs as it sees fit.”

However, Putin warned that if Armenia backed out or refused to comply with the Karabakh agreement, that would be “suicide.”

Putin pointed out that the status of Karabakh will be determined in the future.

Meanwhile, the Russian Federation Council has passed a resolution granting President Putin its consent to dispatch Russian peacekeeping forces to Karabakh. The upper house of the Russian parliament approved the measure on Wednesday.

On November 9, leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a joint statement on the complete ceasefire in Karabakh.

SS