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Armenia protesters set deadline for president

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  • Armenia protesters set deadline for president

    Agence France Presse
    June 30, 2011 Thursday 5:48 PM GMT



    Armenia protesters set deadline for president

    YEREVAN, June 30 2011


    Around 4,000 opposition supporters rallied in the Armenian capital on
    Thursday, vowing to force the ex-Soviet state's leader to step down
    unless he fulfils their demands within two months.

    "We give the authorities a two-month deadline," the leader of the
    Armenian National Congress opposition bloc and the country's former
    president Levon Ter-Petrosian told the rally.

    "If the authorities do not start dialogue before the start of
    September, that will leave us with only one demand," Ter-Petrosian
    said.

    But turnout at the rally was smaller than at previous demonstrations
    this year, after a series of concessions offered by the authorities
    led by President Serzh Sarkisian.

    Sarkisian's administration has already fulfilled demands to allow
    opposition rallies in a previously forbidden central square and has
    released activists jailed for involvement in clashes after disputed
    presidential elections in 2008 that left 10 people dead.

    The Armenian leader this month also touted dialogue aimed at
    preventing what he called "dangerous" situations -- a reference to the
    violence in 2008 -- but has refused to hold early elections as
    Ter-Petrosian has demanded.

    Other speakers at the rally threatened an Arab-style popular uprising,
    although the opposition bloc has not attempted this year to stage
    round-the-clock protests as it did in 2008.

    Parliamentary elections are due next year in Armenia and some analysts
    have accused the opposition of pre-poll electioneering.

    Armenia has gone through political and military turmoil since
    independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with a series of disputed
    votes and a war with neighbouring Azerbaijan over the region of
    Nagorny Karabakh.

    Since the Karabakh war in the 1990s, Armenia has suffered economically
    because of closed borders with Azerbaijan and another neighbour
    Turkey, which strongly objects to Yerevan's campaign to have the World
    War I-era mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire recognised
    as genocide.

    mkh-emc/pvh



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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