Street protests rock Armenia

Protests in Yerevan continued late into Sunday night with tens of thousands of Armenians gathering in the city centre despite earlier attempts by police to break up the march with batons and tear gas.

Three opposition leaders including Nikol Pashinyan and around 230 protesters have been detained drawing criticism from the European Union. Demonstrators are demanding that newly appointed Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan quit.

Pashinyan was arrested after televised talks with Sargsyan collapsed, with the prime minister walking out.

Critics accuse Sarksyan of ruling the South Caucasus nation of around 3 million people for too long, of being too close to Russia which has military bases inside Armenia, and of doing too little to root out corruption.


Sarksyan says his country needs him and that his party enjoys large-scale popular support.

Under a revised constitution approved in a 2015 referendum, most state powers shifted to the prime minister while the presidency has become a largely ceremonial post.

Armenia is facing its biggest political crisis in a decade . The protests threaten to destablise a key Russian ally in a volatile region as "people power" takes to the streets.