YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — A brawl broke out Tuesday in Armenia's National Assembly involving an opposition lawmaker who later was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and faces prosecution for calling for ousting President Nikol Pashinyan as political tensions flared in the South Caucasus country.
Artur Sargsyan, who represents the opposition bloc Armenia, had finished a speech in which he said the case against him had been decided ahead of time and tried to leave the chamber. Other lawmakers then moved to stop him, and security guards flooded in, according to video from news outlets.
In his speech, Sargsyan said Armenia had become “a bastion of dictatorship” where "everything is decided in advance, written down, approved.”
Lawmakers later voted to strip Sargsyan of his parliamentary immunity, opening him up to prosecution. He turned himself in to Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which had accused him and 15 others of plotting to overthrow the government.
Pashinyan's government has been cracking down on political opponents he has said are trying to engineer a coup.
Various members of the opposition, including the influential Armenian Apostolic Church, have been leading demonstrations urging Pashinyan’s ouster after he agreed to territorial concessions in the country's decades-long battle with neighboring Azerbaijan for control of disputed regions.
Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan and Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, both senior church leaders, are in pre-trial detention after being accused of taking part in the alleged plot.
On June 28, crowds of supporters gathered at church headquarters outside the capital of Yerevan to prevent Ajapahyan’s arrest. He later turned himself in to the authorities.
The Investigative Committee said conspirators planned to carry out bombings and arson to disrupt power supplies and stage accidents on major roads to paralyze traffic. Both men rejected the charges against them.
Ajapahyan and Galstanyan are members of the opposition group Sacred Struggle, which took a central role in anti-Pashinyan demonstrations last year.
Although the territorial concessions were the movement’s core issue, it has expanded to a wide array of complaints about Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018. It has also sparked increasing friction between the president and the church in recent weeks.
In a social media post Monday, Pashinyan said he would liberate the Armenian Apostolic Church from its “anti-Christian, adulterous, anti-national, anti-state” leadership.
Police on Monday raided one of the country’s major energy providers, which is owned by another Pashinyan critic, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan. Parliament adopted a law allowing for nationalizing the company on July 3, days after Karapetyan was arrested for calling for the ouster of the government.
The raid began in the morning and it was unclear which branch of the government or security services was carrying it out, said company spokesperson Natalya Sarjanyan.
“We do not know which department these people are from, but we are not allowed into the office,” she said.
Armenia and Azerbaijan were locked in territorial disputes since the early 1990s, as various parts of the Soviet Union pressed for independence from Moscow. After the USSR collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatist forces backed by the Armenian military won control of Azerbaijan’s region of Karabakh and nearby territories.
In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured broad swaths of territory that were held for nearly three decades by Armenian forces. A swift military campaign in September 2023 saw Azerbaijan gain full control of Karabakh, and Armenia later handed over the border villages.
In this photo taken from video released by Armenia's National Assembly on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, Armenian lawmaker Artur Sargsyan, who represents the opposition bloc, delivers a speech at Armenia's National Assembly in Yerevan, Armenia. (Armenian National Assembly via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
