<span style="color: #222222;">In Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan relieved the country's Chief of General Staff Onik Gasparyan of his duties today.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Prime Minister Pashinyan has been under pressure from the military to step down following a deadly conflict with Azerbaijan.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The prime minister called the demand an attempted coup and began legal proceedings to force out the army's top general.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">On Tuesday opposition protesters blocked the entrances to the parliament building in Yerevan, saying that they would not leave until Prime Minister Pashinyan stepped down.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">In late February, Pashinyan tried to remove the chief of general staff, but this was blocked by President Armen Sarkissian.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The 45-year-old prime minister came to power in 2018 as part of a popular movement to remove the longtime leader Serzh Sargsyan.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He is now facing a new popular movement with military support that is seeking his own removal.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The opposition has been pressuring him to step down based on his handling of the Azerbaijan conflict.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Armenia lost de facto control over much of the majority ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan.</span><br />''