Armenia arrests ex-intel boss for allegedly planning PM Pashinyan's assassination

Armenia's National Security Service (NSS), which is the country's topmost intelligence agency, on Saturday, November 14 detained its former director Artur Vanetsyan along with two other people on suspicion of planning to assassinate Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in order to usurp power. The NSS in a statement said that the suspects were planning to illegally take power by murdering the prime minister and were already discussing his replacement. 

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'Political persecution'

However, Vanetsyan's lawyer Lusine Sahakyan took to her Facebook and called it a "disgraceful political persecution". In another post, she urged Nikol Pashinyan to resign from his position as Prime Minister accusing him of handing over homeland to the Azerbaijani side. Armenia and Azerbaijan were involved in a bitter fight for the past one and a half months and reached a Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement on November 10. 

Read: Villagers In Nagorno-Karabakh Torch Homes As They Flee To Armenia In Mass Exodus

The agreement saw Armenia cede territories to Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Ethnic Armenian villagers, in territories that were handed over to Azerbaijan under the recent deal, set their houses on fire before fleeing to Armenia earlier this week. This has not gone down well with the Armenian people, who have since taken to the streets to protest against the decision and are demanding the resignation of Pashinyan. 

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Russian peacekeepers have been deployed along the Nagorno-Karabakh region to uphold the ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Russian military said on Wednesday, November 11. According to Kremlin, the warring sides will exchange prisoners of war, detainees, and dead bodies as part of the agreements. The United Nations Commissioner for Refugee will oversee the return of displaced people to Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent regions. 

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(Image Credit: AP)