Crowds besieged the parliament and government offices in Yerevan after a peace deal with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh was announced. The terms involve Armenia surrendering some territory it held.
Gunshots could be heard in the streets of the capital as angry protesters stormed the government building, looking for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the early hours of Tuesday, after he revealed the outline of a “painful” agreement to give up land in Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan in exchange for an end to the bloodshed.
Pashinyan’s whereabouts were unknown, at the time, but he was unharmed. Armenia’s parliament was apparently under the control of the protesters, for a time.
The speaker of the Armenian parliament, Ararat Mirzoyan, was reportedly beaten up during the fracas and is in a serious condition.
The armistice that came into effect at midnight on Tuesday local time seeks to end six weeks of fighting over the contested region, which has seen major Azerbaijani advances into the territory held by ethnic Armenians since 1994.
