Armenia's president refuses to fire army chief at center of political crisis

MOSCOW: Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has refused to fire the head of the general staff of the country’s armed forces after he was dismissed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the presidential office said on Saturday.

Pashinyan dismissed the head of the general staff Onik Gasparyan on Thursday after what he had called an attempted coup to remove him, but the move had to be signed off by the president.

According to the president’s statement, posted on the presidential office website, the move to dismiss Gasparyan was unconstitutional.

The army has called for the resignation of Pashinyan and his government after what critics say was the disastrous handling of a bloody six-week conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.