Armenia has prevented an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the seizure of power by a group of former officials, the National Security Service (NSS) says.
Mr Pashinyan had come under pressure with thousands of demonstrators protesting since Tuesday and demanding he resign over a ceasefire that secured territorial advances for Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh after six weeks of fighting.
The NSS said its former head Artur Vanetsyan, the former head of the Republican Party parliamentary faction Vahram Baghdasaryan and war volunteer Ashot Minasyan were under arrest.
“The suspects were planning to illegally usurp power by murdering the prime minister and there were already potential candidates being discussed to replace him,” the NSS said in a statement.
Mr Pashinyan’s lawyers Lusine Sahakyan and Ervand Varosyan called the detention a “persecution” and denied the allegations against their client – that he was preparing to seize power after the prime minister’s murder.
Mr Pashinyan has faced violent street protests and fierce criticism from Armenia’s political opposition since he signed a peace deal with Azerbaijan to end fighting over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, which erupted in September.
Earlier this week he said he had no choice but to sign the agreement to prevent further territorial losses. He said he was taking personal responsibility for the setbacks, but rejected calls to step down.
Armenia faced heavy losses by technologically superior Azeri troops and Mr Pashinyan agreed to cede large parts of the mostly Christian and ethnically Armenian region to Muslim-majority Azerbaijan in order to bring an end to the hostilities.
The ceasefire halted military action in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated by ethnic Armenians.
Under the agreement, 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops are being deployed to the region.
Since the early 1990s, ethnic Armenians have held military control over all of Nagorno-Karabakh and substantial swathes of Azeri territory surrounding it. They have now lost much of the enclave itself as well as the surrounding territory.
