YEREVAN, Armenia—In a night of passion, protest, and anguish, demonstrators took to the streets early Tuesday to excoriate the peace deal announced overnight by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that ended a six-week war and a decadeslong dispute over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The deal, announced discreetly in a 2 a.m. Facebook post, came as a surprise to many, with sources in the government of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region saying they had no prior knowledge of it. The Russian-brokered cease-fire and peace agreement will see Azerbaijan, which had pummeled the armed forces of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, keep some of its recent territorial gains—sparking dismay among a population that had vowed to keep fighting. The region has been internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but its population is predominantly Armenian, and Armenia considers it an independent state.
