Armenia needs peace, PM says after Azerbaijan retakes Karabakh

FILE PHOTO: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addresses parliament following an escalation in hostilities over the Nagorno-Karabakh region along the border of Armenia with Azerbaijan, in Yerevan, Armenia, September 13, 2022. Tigran Mehrabyan/PAN Photo via REUTERS/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Armenia needs to be "free of conflict" for the sake of its independence, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told his compatriots on Thursday, after their ethnic kin in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region surrendered this week to Azerbaijan.

The fall of Karabakh, a region that the ethnic Armenian separatists had controlled for three decades with Yerevan's support, has stoked calls in Armenia for Pashinyan's resignation.