YEREVAN, May 31. /TASS/. Armenian police detained 28 protesters of the opposition group Tavush for the Motherland outside the Foreign Ministry, according to a statement from the country's Investigative Committee.

"Between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. a group of people participating in acts of civil disobedience approached the Foreign Ministry and tried to break through the police cordon. According to the ministry, the demonstrators hurled stones, water bottles, smoke bombs, etc. toward the police. Some of the demonstrators started calling for taking over the building. The police carried out the necessary measures, resulting in the detention of 28 people. The Investigative Committee’s major crimes department started an investigation into the signs of their participation in mass riots," the committee said on Facebook (banned in Russia as it’s owned by Meta Corporation, which is designated as an extremist organization in Russia).

As a result clashes, seven police officers and several demonstrators sought medical assistance.

As soon as word of the detentions spread, the crowd of the Tavush for the Motherland protesters marched to the Investigative Committee to demand their release.

Protests led by Archbishop Bagrat of the Tavush Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church began in Armenia following news reports that Baku and Yerevan had agreed to delimit their border in the Tavush region. Yerevan agreed to cede to Baku four villages that used to be part of Azerbaijan in the Soviet era, but had been under Armenian control since the 1990s. Tavush for the Motherland demands the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accusing him of surrendering land to Azerbaijan.