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Opposition Hayastan faction MP Artsvik Minasyan on Thursday denounced Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for a violent police crackdown on protesting residents of Kirants, a border village in Armenia’s Tavush Province.

Early on Thursday morning, police officers brutally detained over 30 villagers blocking a local highway section in protest against the territorial concessions to Azerbaijan. The Interior Ministry said later in the morning that all the detainees were released from the police custody.

It came after Pashinyan’s interview to the Public TV Company late on Wednesday in which he defended the decision to hand over Tavush border areas to Azerbaijan to prevent a possible Azeri invasion.

“On the air of the Public TV Company on Wednesday, Nikol Pashinyan was addressing his “beloved sisters and brothers” in Kirants, which was followed by a violent police crackdown on local residents who were rounded up early this morning,” Minasyan said, addressing lawmakers.

“The government is trying to implement its anti-national plan by intimidating its own people and using violence against them,” the deputy stressed, calling for accountability for the police officers accused of brutality.