Government reveals details from Pashinyan’s meeting in border village

PanARMENIAN.Net - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met on Monday, April 29 with a group of residents of a border village in Armenia’s northern Tavush province that has been the epicenter of continuing protests against his decision to make territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.

“The prime minister presented the current process in detail and emphasized that the government is familiar with all the problems,” the Armenian government said in a statement on Pashinyan’s meeting with the mayor and a dozen other residents of the village of Kirants.

Pashinyan and other officials present at the meeting urged them to “start works on the ground and find solutions to outstanding issues through joint discussions,” it added without elaborating.

The Kirants representatives looked unhappy and were reluctant to talk to the press as they emerged from the government building. Some of them said only that they did not hear anything new from Pashinyan.

Gegham Nazaryan, an opposition parliamentarian who spoke to them privately, likewise claimed afterwards that Pashinyan “said nothing new”, RFE/RL’s Armenian service reports.

“The residents were left in uncertainty and panic again,” Nazaryan told reporters. “People are already thinking about the worst because none of the demands, requests or reasonable proposals made by the village of Kirants were accepted.”

In his words, Pashinyan admitted that even his latest concessions to Baku will not guarantee the security of Kirants and nearby communities.

Kirants is one of the four Tavush villages adjacent to border areas that are due to be handed over to Azerbaijan as part of what the government calls the start of the demarcation of the Armenian- Azerbaijani border. Hundreds of villagers joined by other residents of Tavush and other parts of Armenia have been blocking a local section of a key national highway since April 20. Some of them clashed with riot police on Friday.