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Armenian opposition says country plunged into parliamentary crisis

Quorum wasn’t secured, the meeting of the parliament council did not take place, Secretary of the Prosperous Armenia party Arman Abovyan said

YEREVAN, November 11. /TASS/. The Armenian opposition believes the failure to call a parliamentary council meeting, which was supposed to make the decision to call an urgent session of the legislature, is a parliamentary crisis, Secretary of the Prosperous Armenia party Arman Abovyan told TASS Wednesday.

"Quorum wasn’t secured, the meeting of the parliament council did not take place. This means that the country is in a parliamentary crisis. We will continue fighting using all possibilities of the constitution," Abovyan said on behalf of all the present council members. He also underlined that attempts to call the meeting will still take place on Thursday.

On Wednesday, quorum wasn’t mustered to hold a meeting of the Armenian parliament council which was meant to determine whether to put the issue of possible resignation of incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to the agenda of a possible urgent session of parliament. In case quorum can be secured, an urgent meeting should take place in parliament as was called by some lawmakers to oust Pashinyan and denounce the joint statement on complete end of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier, 17 political parties of Armenia called a protest rally in central Yerevan, demanding the prime minister’s resignation.

On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. The Russian leader said the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides would maintain the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region. Besides, Baku and Yerevan must exchange prisoners and the bodies of those killed.

The Armenian Defense Ministry and the General Staff said Tuesday that the national armed forces will abide by the agreement, calling on the nation to refrain from actions that destabilize the situation in the country. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said Tuesday that political consultations were underway to discuss the situation that emerged after the agreement was signed.

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