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Armenia opposition backs down after violent clashes

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  • Armenia opposition backs down after violent clashes

    Armenia opposition backs down after violent clashes
    By Margarita Antidze

    Reuters
    Sat Mar 1, 2008 11:37pm GMT

    YEREVAN, March 2 (Reuters) - Most of the opposition supporters locked
    in a standoff with police in Armenia's capital ended their protest
    on Sunday but a group of around 60 refused to go home and set fire
    to abandoned police vehicles.

    Most of the crowd, which numbered about 2,000, headed away from a
    square in the Armenian capital where they had been demonstrating after
    a message was read out from opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan
    urging them to go home.

    Armenian leader Robert Kocharyan had declared a state of emergency late
    on Saturday and said he would send in the army to end the standoff
    with opposition supporters, who earlier in the day fought pitched
    battles with police.

    In a message read out by one of his supporters, Ter-Petrosyan told
    the demonstrators to go home until the 20-day state of emergency
    had expired.

    "I do not want any victims and clashes between police and innocent
    people. That is why I am asking you to leave," said the message from
    Ter-Petrosyan, who has been barred by police from leaving his home.

    His supporters had been staging daily protests since a Feb. 19 election
    they said had been rigged to hand victory to Prime Minister Serzh
    Sarksyan, a close Kocharyan ally.

    A Reuters reporter at the scene of the protest said about 60
    people refused to go, with some accusing Ter-Petrosyan of being
    a traitor. They set fire to police jeeps left there following the
    clashes on Saturday.

    Armenia is an ex-Soviet republic of 3.2 million people in a Caucasus
    mountains region that is emerging as a key transit route for oil
    and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea. (Writing by Christian Lowe;
    editing by Keith Weir)
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