MP: Armenian leadership troubled by high-profile support for church

Opposition MP Tigran Abrahamyan has commented on the dismissal of National Security Service (NSS) Director Armen Abazyan by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

"I'm not aware of the exact reasons behind Abazyan’s dismissal, but perhaps it stems from the fact that he, too, has certain red lines in his life, and those lines may have already been crossed," the Pativ Unem faction MP told reporters on Wednesday.

He stated that the move wasn’t triggered by a single event, but rather by a series of accumulated issues that came to a head during recent developments.

Abrahamyan stressed that the Armenian leadership cannot easily dismiss the backlash from its attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church and its senior clergy given the church's high reputation in Armenia and abroad.

"What’s particularly concerning for the authorities is that prominent figures, such as Samvel Karapetyan, are now openly expressing support for the church. Thus, the government was compelled to respond and that’s exactly what we saw yesterday," Abrahamyan said, referring to a raid at Karapetyan's Yerevan house and his subsequent arrest.