Yerevan: Hundreds of Armenians broke into government buildings in the capital Yerevan early on Tuesday in protest at the decision of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to stop the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The protest came minutes after Armenia and Azerbaijan announced an agreement to halt fighting over the disputed region under a pact signed with Russia.
The agreement calls for the deployment of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, along with territorial concessions.
Pashinian said on Facebook that calling an end to the fight was "extremely painful for me and our people."
Soon after the announcement, thousands of people streamed to the main square in Yerevan to protest the agreement, many shouting "We won't give up our land."
Read:| Armenia and Azerbaijan agree to end fighting
Some of them broke into the main government building, saying they were searching for Pashinian, who had already departed.
They threw furniture and smashed some chairs.
The agreement calls for Armenian forces to turn over control of some areas it held outside the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the eastern district of Agdam.
That area carries strong symbolic weight for Azerbaijan because its main city, also called Agdam, was thoroughly pillaged, and the only building remaining intact is the city's mosque.
Armenians will also turn over the Lachin region, which holds the main road leading from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The agreement calls for the road, the so-called Lachin Corridor, to remain open and be protected by Russian peacekeepers.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a 1994 truce ended a separatist war in which an estimated 30,000 people died. Since then, sporadic clashes erupted, and full-scale fighting began on September 27.
AP
