Police detain 300 anti-government protesters in Armenia

Armenian police have detained nearly 300 opposition supporters who tried to block streets in the capital Yerevan, which has been gripped for a month by anti-government protests.

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of opposition supporters attempted to block streets across central Yerevan, an AFP news agency journalist witnessed.

Armenia's police department said "286 people who disobeyed lawful demands of law enforcement agents were briefly detained".

Since mid-April, opposition parties have been staging rallies demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's resignation over his handling of Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.

Arch-foes Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars – in 2020 and in the 1990s – over the region of Karabakh.

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Six-weeks of fighting in autumn 2020 ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement.

Clashes erupted on September 27, 2020, between the Armenian army and Azerbaijani forces.

National humiliation

During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and around 300 settlements and villages that had been occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.

In January 2021, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a pact to develop economic ties and infrastructure to benefit the entire region. It also included the establishment of a trilateral working group on Karabakh.

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The pact was seen in Armenia as a national humiliation and sparked weeks of anti-government protests, leading Pashinyan to call snap parliamentary polls which his party, Civil Contract, won last September.