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Armenian President Armen Sarkissian "acted like Pontius Pilate" by failing to apply to the Constitutional Court to challenge the legality of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to dismiss the chief of the army’s General Staff, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaktsutyun) Supreme Council of Armenia, Artsvik Minasyan, said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters during a protest action near the parliament building, the politician said the president decided to “wash his hands” of the issue with such a move and is now making a “thunderous” statement that he has applied to the high court to challenge the legal provision.

At the same time, Minasyan said that the president’s appeal “cannot provide any solution in a tense situation like this.”

“The steps taken by Armen Sarkissian and Nikol Pashinyan are leading the country to an absolute decline. The problem is that the military’s General Staff is the only legitimate institution guaranteeing the security, territorial integrity and defense of the Republic of Armenia,” he said.

According to Minasyan, the General Staff cannot subordinate the security of the state to the “whim of one person”, therefore its chief Onik Gasparyan and the other high-ranking military officers should remain in office and be able to find a way out of the crisis through political dialogue.

The ARF member reiterated their call for Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation as the only way to resolve the problem and to pave the way for negotiations.

“However he is not making an effort to ease the tensions, but is constantly trying to provoke clashes. The responsibility for all the further developments rests with Nikol Pashinyan," Minasyan said.

He called on Armenians to join the opposition rally outside the National Assembly to express support to the military and demand that the parliamentary majority lift the martial law and express no confidence in Pashinyan.