17:59, 8 March 2021

Karabakh militaries support Armenian General Staff's head

Onik Gasparyan. Photo by the press service of the Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD)

More than 120 officers of the Nagorno-Karabakh's Defence Army have signed an appeal in support of Onik Gasparyan, the head of the General Staff of the Armenian Army, urging not to admit his resignation.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 6, at a rally in Yerevan, war veterans demanded from Armenian President to challenge, through the Constitutional Court, the draft proposal of Nikol Pashinyan, the country's Prime Minister, on Onik Gasparyan's dismissal. The former militaries have also joined the opposition in its demand of Premier's resignation.

On February 25, the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces called on Pashinyan to resign. He treated it an attempt of a coup d'etat and drew up a decree to dismiss the head of the General Staff. However, President Armen Sargsyan has twice refused to sign the decree.

The President has not yet sent the draft decree on Gasparyan's dismissal to the Constitutional Court, which implies an automatic resignation of the high-ranking military leader. However, according to the law, taking into account the non-working days, Onik Gasparyan's term of office expires on March 9, the "Sputnik Armenia" reports.

Let us remind you that, in the opinion of political analysts, the resignation of the head of the General Staff of Armenia will be the subject of behind-the-scene negotiations. The General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has threatened Sargsyan with Gasparyan's persecution of if the President interfered with his resignation, Armen Badalyan, a political strategist, has suggested.

The political crisis in Armenia escalated after Pashinyan criticized the quality of Russian "Iskander" missile systems. He commented on the words of ex-President Serzh Sargsyan that the missile systems should have been used in the first days of the autumn aggravation of the Karabakh conflict.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 8, 2021 at 09:42 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.