Tavush spiritual leader blocks road near border village

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, Primate of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, on Thursday staged a sit-in in the middle of an interstate road near the border village of Kirants after police officers barred him and opposition MPs from entering the village.

“I am blocking the interstate road single-handedly... I am simply ashamed of the police blocking the road to Kirants, not allowing me, as the spiritual leader of Tavush, to enter the village and to find out how the people are doing,” he says.

The police closed the road to Kirants after clearing the protest camp there early in the morning. Only local residents are allowed to enter the village, the epicenter of protests against the unilateral territorial concessions to Azerbaijan announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government on April 19.