In Armenia, tens of thousands of people protested against the return of several villages to Azerbaijan

Armenia agreed to hand over villages it had owned since the 1910s and began demarcating the border in an effort to reach a peace deal with Baku and avoid another bloody conflict.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two countries in the South Caucasus have been at odds for three decades over disputed territory, particularly Nagorno-Karabakh.

“I came here today because I want to leave a beautiful country for our children (…) We can no longer live like this, constantly giving away our land,” 77-year-old Edikas Nikogosian, who participated in the rally, told the AFP news agency.

After six days of protests in Armenia’s northeastern Tavush region, where the government agreed to cede part of the territory, demonstrators began marching on the capital.

Members of opposition parties and organizations representing refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh joined tens of thousands of people outside the government building in Yerevan’s Republic Square.

Azerbaijan regained control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in a lightning-quick one-day offensive last fall. Since then, more than 100,000 people have already fled Nagorno-Karabakh. people – almost all ethnic Armenians of this separatist region.

Prime Minister Nikolas Pashinyan agreed to Baku’s demand to return four border villages in the Tavush region that were captured by Armenian forces in the 1990s.

He said this would be the first step towards a peace deal with Baku and that Yerevan would not cede any of its sovereign territory.

But the deal sparked weeks of protests, with people blocking major roads to force Pashinian to reverse course.

“Nicholas [Pašinianas] engages in trade in our land, earns money from it. We need to remove him from office as soon as possible,” said 70-year-old protester Norik Shahramanian.

“I fought until the end for Arcach, but we lost it,” said teacher Sona Matevosian, 45, who used the separatist Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan.

“I don’t want to lose Armenia either. We cannot allow weak authorities to give Armenia away,” she said.