Armenia PM announces snap polls to defuse crisis

YEREVAN: Armenia’s embattled Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced snap polls on Thursday in a bid to defuse a political crisis that has shaken the country since last year’s military defeat to Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan has faced calls to resign since November when he signed a peace deal brokered by Russia that ended weeks of fighting for control of the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan. Armenia’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Azerbaijan’s technologically superior army spurred mass protests in the impoverished ex-Soviet republic on the borders of Turkey and Iran.

Last month Pashinyan fired the country’s most senior military official, accusing the army chief of staging a coup after he called on the prime minister to resign. The spat sparked massive demonstrations, with Pashinyan’s supporters and his opponents flooding the streets of the capital.