MOSCOW – Armenia, which lost a bloody war with its neighbor Azerbaijan last fall, slipped into political crisis on Thursday after what its prime minister called an “attempted military coup”.
The instability added to what was already a bitter winter for Armenia, a tiny country in the South Caucasus wedged between countries it considers its enemies.
A slumping economy and severe coronavirus outbreak continue to darken a country’s mood over the humiliating loss of life and territory in the six-week war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, an ethnic Armenian territory within Azerbaijan’s borders . .
Armenia had been severely obsolete by the Azerbaijani army and was forced to accept a settlement that gave up strategically and historically treasured territory it had taken in an earlier war nearly three decades ago.
In a statement released Thursday, the Armed Forces General Staff called for the resignation of the country’s civilian leadership, blaming Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came about on the settlement, for shifting the blame to it. army.
“For a long time, the Armenian Armed Forces have patiently discredited attacks from the current government, but everything has its limits,” the statement said. “The armed forces of Armenia have performed their duty with honor.”
In a speech broadcast live on Facebook, Mr. Pashinyan that he would fire the Chief of the General Staff, Onik Gasparyan, and that a military coup had started. He then called on supporters to gather in a central square in the capital.
While a crowd was moving about, fighter jets flew with two low dropouts above the city, their engines screeching. But there was no sign of tanks, the deployment of troops, or any other sign that a military coup was actually underway.
And it was unclear whether the fighters were Russian or Armenian. Russia has a defense pact with Armenia and maintains an air base in the country.
“The main problem we have today is the preservation of civil power,” said Mr Pashinyan, calling on supporters to the square. “I consider what is happening as an attempt at a military coup.”
However, a short time later, Mr Pashinyan seemed to revert to that assessment, saying, “My statement about the threat of a military coup was emotional.” He asked his supporters to avoid any conflict with soldiers.
“The threat of a coup is largely manageable, it was an emotional response, and we shouldn’t be harsh with our brothers,” he said of the generals.
Mr. Pashinyan’s conflict with the generals had been simmering since the beginning of this week. He was criticized by a political opponent for failing to deploy Russian Iskander medium-range missiles, one of the country’s most expensive weapon systems, which may have turned the country’s fortunes during the war.
Mr Pashinyan replied that he had indeed ordered the missiles to be fired, but some of them were not working properly – a hint of either shoddy Russian equipment or mismanagement in the military. After a Deputy Chief of General Staff publicly contradicted Mr. Pashinyan on the missiles, Mr. Pashinyan then fired the Deputy Chief of Staff. From there things escalated, with the General Staff sided with the General.
It was a worrying collapse of civilian command of the army, Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center, an analytical group in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, said in a telephone interview. The generals’ defiant statement showed “the army is wading into the political arena” and seemed to at least support Mr Pashinyan’s political opponents.
Early Thursday night, the generals had issued a new statement saying they had made the previous statement of their own accord, inconsistent with any political opposition party. In the deeper twilight, crowds supporting both Mr. Pashinyan and the opposition streamed through the streets of Yerevan showed videos.