Armenia PM quits after 11 days of protests

Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan said yesterday he was resigning to help safeguard civic peace following almost two weeks of mass street protests that have plunged the impoverished ex-Soviet republic into political crisis.

Sarksyan, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had served as Armenia’s president for a decade until this month and had faced accusations of clinging to power when parliament elected him as prime minister last week.

Soldiers join protests

Under a revised constitution, the prime minister now holds most power in the tiny southern Caucasus nation, while the presidency has become largely ceremonial. Pressure on the 63-year-old to quit had increased sharply yesterday when unarmed soldiers in the capital Yerevan joined the anti-government protests, which first erupted on April 13.

Though peaceful, the tumult has threatened to destabilise Armenia, a key Russian ally in a volatile region riven by its decadeslong, low-level conflict with Azerbaijan.