Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has warned of an attempted military coup, after the country’s armed forces said he and his cabinet must resign.

The army “must obey the people and elected authorities,” he told thousands of supporters in the capital Yerevan. His opponents held a rival rally.

The military’s top brass was angered by the PM’s sacking of a commander.

Mr Pashinyan has faced protests after losing last year’s bloody conflict with Azerbaijan over a disputed region.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but which had been controlled by ethnic Armenians since a 1994 truce.

During the six-weeks of fighting late in 2020, Azerbaijan not only recaptured areas around the enclave but also took the key town of Shusha inside it.

Under the Russian-brokered deal that emerged shortly afterwards, Azerbaijan keeps the areas it has captured. Hundreds of Russian peacekeepers are deployed in the disputed area.

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