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Rector of the Yerevan State University (YSU) Aram Simonyan said today he has no intention to step down amid student protests demanding his resignation. 

He met today with the protesting students to discuss their demands at the university’s conference hall. “Since you are not ready to make changes, you must submit resignation,” said student activist David Petrosyan.

He announced about the students’ intention not to leave the meeting room until Simonyan steps down.

“I call on all the other students to join us. The Board of Trustees should put the issue of [the rector’s] resignation to the discussion in the government and meet the students’ demand,” he added.  

Afterwards the students sat in front of the doors of the hall barring Simonyan from leaving the room, with the latter describing the move as an ‘evident pressure’ against him.

“It is my right to leave this room, you are violating it,” he told the protesting students, who eventually agreed to open the way taking into account ‘the rector’s age’.

“I will not make any concession through violence. I can do it only voluntarily, and this is violence,” he said leaving the meeting room. 

The YSU students boycotted the classes on Tuesday morning and marched through the Yerevan streets demanding the rector’s resignation, citing the ‘financial abuses and corruption schemes’ in the university. They also claim the university is politicalized.