YEREVAN -- Students have joined opposition groups in marches led by an outspoken Armenian archbishop, blocking streets in Yerevan as part of a "day of disobedience" to protest a land deal negotiated by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his government with rival Azerbaijan.
A day after tens of thousands of Armenians packed the capital’s central square, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian, the leader of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, led the march on May 10, where he called for university students to ratchet up pressure on Pashinian to resign.
"We must continue our civil disobedience actions," Galstanian, who called a new rally at Yerevan’s Republic Square for the evening of May 10, told reporters. "We cannot retreat and back down in any way."
The unrest was sparked by a controversial border-demarcation deal with Baku that cedes control of four villages that were part of Azerbaijan during the Soviet era but which have been controlled by Armenia since the 1990s.
The border agreement has been hailed by the United States and the European Union, as well as by Pashinian, who has been accused by opposition politicians of giving up territory with no guarantees.
"We spoke with the parliamentary deputies. They are ready to continue this process, to complete it legally, and then a candidate for prime minister will be required, and then probably a name will be announced," Galstanian said.
WATCH: Armenian Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian led a second day of mass protests in Yerevan on May 10, urging university students to boycott classes and join his movement.
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Armenian Students Join Firebrand Archbishop In Anti-Government Protests
On May 9, Galstanian said in a speech to supporters who gathered in Republic Square that Pashinian had one hour to announce his resignation. The deadline passed without any word from the beleaguered prime minister as chants of “Nikol! Traitor!” and “Resign!” emanated from the crowd.
Galstanian has called on his supporters to be patient for “two or three more days” while he explored the possibility of impeaching Pashinian in parliament.
The two opposition groups represented in the legislature have pledged to initiate a parliamentary vote of no confidence in the prime minister. But with the house controlled by Pashinian's Civil Contract party and senior lawmakers representing it insisting that neither they nor any of their pro-government colleagues will back such a motion, it remains unclear whether a vote will ever take place.
Pashinian's political allies and other supporters have verbally attacked Galstanian during protests, which have been peaceful, over the past two weeks.
During an April 30 session of the Armenian parliament, pro-government lawmakers branded Galstanian as a Russian spy, accused him of provoking another war with Azerbaijan, and even called on Armenian border guards to forcibly draft the 52-year-old archbishop.
Pashinian has said the unilateral concessions are necessary to prevent Azerbaijani military aggression against Armenia. The Armenian opposition maintains Pashinian is actually encouraging Baku to demand more territory from Armenia and to use force for that purpose.
Armenia agreed to the handover as the initial step in defining the frontier between the two rival South Caucasus countries.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, are scheduled to hold peace talks in the Kazakh city of Almaty on May 10.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars in the last three decades over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been a majority ethnic Armenian enclave since the Soviet collapse and is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory.
The region initially came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994.
In 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabakh along with seven surrounding districts that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.
After Baku took full control over the region as the result of a one-day military operation in September last year, nearly 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.