YEREVAN, February 28. /TASS/. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Sunday he has called a rally and a march on March 1 to defend the country’s democratic and constitutional system.

"The goal of tomorrow’s rally and march is to defend the democratic constitutional system in Armenia and people’s power. Not ours but people’s. Because power in our country belongs to the people," he said in an address broadcast live on his Facebook account.

He said he hoped as many as possible people from all around Yerevan and Armenia would take part in the rally.

Mass rallies of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s supporters and opponents engulfed Armenia on Thursday after the country’s General Staff had come out with a statement demanding resignation of the prime minister and the government. Pashinyan slammed the General Staff’s statement as an attempted military coup and announced a decision to dismiss the chief of the General Staff.

Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian, who is authorized by the national constitution to appoint and dismiss chief of the General Staff upon the prime minister’s nomination, on Saturday refused to sign a decree dismissing the General Staff chief. After that, Pashinyan referred the document to the president again and called on his supporters to gather for a rally on Yerevan’s central square on March 1.

The president now has three days to either sign the decree or challenge it with the Constitutional Court.