YEREVAN, Armenia: Tens of thousands of demonstrators held a protest Sunday in the center of the capital of Armenia, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after Armenia agreed to hand over control of several border villages to Azerbaijan.
The demonstration was the latest in a weekslong series of gatherings led by a high-ranking cleric in the Armenian Apostolic Church, Bagrat Galstanyan, archbishop of the Tavush diocese in Armenia’s northeast.
He spearheaded the formation of a movement called Tavush For The Homeland after Armenia in April agreed to cede control of four villages in the region to Azerbaijan. Although the villages were the movement’s core issue, it has expanded to express a wide array of complaints about Pashinyan and his government.
Movement leaders told the rally Sunday that they support Galstanyan becoming the next prime minister.
The decision to turn over the villages in Tavush followed the lightning military campaign in September in which Azerbaijan’s military forced ethnic Armenian separatist authorities in the Karabakh region to capitulate.
After Azerbaijan took full control of Karabakh, about 120,000 people fled the region, almost all of its ethnic Armenian population.
Ethnic Armenian fighters backed by Armenian forces had taken control of Karabakh in 1994 at the end of a six-year war. Azerbaijan regained some of the territory in fighting in 2020 that ended in an armistice that brought in a Russian peacekeeper force, which began withdrawing this year.
Pashinyan has said Armenia needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities.
Armenians throng center of the capital to demand the prime minister’s resignation
https://arab.news/yadtf
Armenians throng center of the capital to demand the prime minister’s resignation
- Movement leaders told the rally Sunday that they support Galstanyan becoming the next prime minister
German poll candidate under fire over schoolgirl comments
- Hagel mentioned one girl in particular who stuck in his mind
- The video has provoked a backlash, with Greens MP Zoe Mayer and other critics accusing Hagel of sexism
BERLIN: A politician from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right party has come under fire during a local election campaign after a video resurfaced of him making comments about schoolgirls.
Manuel Hagel, 37, is the CDU’s top candidate for regional elections in the prosperous southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg on March 8.
In the video from 2018, Hagel can be seen talking enthusiastically about a visit to a secondary school class in his constituency where 80 percent of the pupils were girls.
“There are worse places for a 29-year-old MP to be,” he grins.
He then mentions one girl in particular who stuck in his mind, noting her “brown hair” and “hazel eyes.”
The video has provoked a backlash, with Greens MP Zoe Mayer and other critics accusing Hagel of sexism.
“What signal does this send to young women who want to get involved in politics?” Mayer said in a clip on Instagram about the video.
During a TV debate aired by the ARD broadcaster on Tuesday, Hagel said he regretted his “stupid mistake,” adding that his wife had “given him a real dressing down” over the comments.
For the past five years, the state government in Baden-Wuerttemberg has been led by the Greens in coalition with the CDU.
However, the CDU is currently leading the polls and looks set to head the next government — possibly in collaboration with the Greens again.
Markus Frohnmaier, the top candidate for the far-right AfD, seized on the video to harangue the Green party candidate about whether he would team up with Hagel during the TV debate.
“Can you still envisage cooperation with the CDU in Baden-Wuerttemberg in this context?” Frohnmaier asked the Greens’ Cem Ozdemir.
The latest polls show the CDU with around 28-percent support in Baden-Wuerttemberg, with the Greens on 22 percent and the AfD on 20 percent.
