Iron Eagle - the EU?
Potus gutting it from the inside out?
By Margarita Antidze and Hasmik Mkrtchyan | YEREVAN
A politician who forced Armenia's prime minister to resign led thousands of people on a march on Tuesday after which he said he was ready to take the reins of power and would keep up pressure on the ruling elite until they agreed to real change.
Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan, who had ruled the country as president before that for a decade, resigned on Monday after almost two weeks of street protests prompted by accusations he had manipulated the constitution to cling to power.
Lawmaker Nikol Pashinyan played an instrumental role in ousting Sarksyan, organising many of the protests and calling for the premier to go in a televised exchange before being jailed and then released. He is set to start talks with the ruling party on Wednesday.
In a move likely to prolong a political crisis that has rocked one of Russia's closest allies in the former Soviet Union, Pashinyan said on Tuesday he was ready to become the country's next prime minister.
"If people put this responsibility on me, I'm ready to become the prime minister," Pashinyan, wearing his trademark black baseball cap and military-style T-shirt, told reporters.
The 42-year-old said the velvet revolution he had helped bring about was not over and that the next step would be the election of a new premier and the holding of an early parliamentary election.
He said he would not accept a new prime minister drawn from the ranks of the ruling Republican Party, which Sarksyan, the man he forced to resign, still leads.
If elected himself, he said he would try to maintain a balance in foreign policy, but ruled out questioning the presence of Russian military bases in Armenia or the country's membership in Russia-led military and economic alliances.
"We are not going to make any sharp geopolitical moves," he said.
Hours earlier, Pashinyan had led thousands of people through the capital Yerevan to a hilltop memorial dedicated to the victims of Ottoman Turk massacres of Armenians in 1915, cementing his growing political stature.
Some chanted his name and waved the national flag as they marked the anniversary of the killings.
https://
uk.reuters.com/article/uk-armenia-politics/armenian-politician-who-forced-pms-resignation-stakes-claim-to-power-idUKKBN1HV27E