Armenians gather in Yerevan on Nov. 11, 2020, to protest against their country’s agreement to end fighting with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. More than 2,000 demonstrators protested in the Armenian capital as anger mounted over Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s decision to cede swathes of the disputed territory to Azerbaijan under a controversial cease-fire.
Armenia’s political crisis is intensifying amid growing calls for the government’s resignation over a controversial cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. The volatile situation in both Armenia and the disputed region makes episodes of ethnically-motivated violence and future violations of the cease-fire possible. On Nov. 9, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a Russia-brokered deal that put an end to six weeks of fighting . The cease-fire involves Armenia giving up on some areas of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and three regions surrounding it. As a part of the deal, roughly 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops will also be present in the region for a five-year period. The cease-fire has been received as a victory in Azerbaijan and as a capitulation in Armenia, as the former won many of the territories it has long sought after in negotiations with the latter over their decades-old dispute.
