YEREVAN -- Two leading opposition lawmakers in Armenia have lost their posts at the National Assembly after they led rallies in Yerevan to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
All 66 lawmakers, most from Pashinian's Civil Contract party, who took part in the July 1 vote backed the measure to remove Ishkhan Saghatelian from the post of deputy speaker of the parliament and Vage Akopian from the post of chairman of the parliamentary commission on economic issues.
Opposition lawmakers boycotted the vote.
The initiators of the move justified the decision by arguing that the two lawmakers had missed a significant number of parliamentary sessions since last year.
Saghatelian, who along with Akopian was not present at parliament’s July 1 session, said to RFE/RL that the move to remove him and his colleague from the parliamentary posts was politically motivated.
The two politicians represent the Hayastan (Armenia) opposition faction in parliament.
Between May 1 and mid-June, the Armenian opposition led almost daily mass protests in Yerevan, demanding Pashinian's resignation.
The protests erupted after Pashinian signaled his readiness in April to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and “lower the bar” on the status of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh acceptable to the Armenian side.
Opposition politicians have accused Pashinian of helping Baku regain full control of Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenia lost control over parts of the Azerbaijani breakaway region and seven adjacent districts in a 2020 war that ended with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire monitored by Russian troops.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been under ethnic Armenian control for nearly three decades, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Pashinian, who said he had agreed to the 2020 cease-fire to avoid further losses, said he would not sign any peace deal with Azerbaijan without consulting ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.