Over 10,000 Armenians Rally Against Poverty, Graft

Over 10,000 opposition supporters rallied on Friday in the Armenian capital demanding a change in government and accusing the present rulers of failing to stem poverty and corruption in the landlocked country.

"The time has come to get rid of our criminal and corrupt government," Armenia's former president and leader of the opposition Armenian National Congress party, Levon Ter-Petrosian, told the rally.

"We need snap parliamentary and presidential polls."

Large crowds filled Yerevan's central Freedom Square at the call of three main opposition parties, Prosperous Armenia, Heritage, and the Armenian National Congress, to protest against rising prices and widespread corruption.

Demanding President Serzh Sarkisian's resignation, protesters chanted "Serzh go!"

"Our authorities had enough time to improve living standards in Armenia, but have so far failed," 34-year-old protester, Anna Saroyan, told AFP. "Now they must go."

Friday's rally coincided with the signature of a landmark agreement that saw Armenia joining a Russian-led economic bloc -- the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan -- and turning its back on closer ties with the European Union.

Sarkisian inked the agreement at a meeting of heads of state in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

An impoverished country of 3.2 million, Armenia was badly affected by the global downturn.

The former Soviet state is economically isolated with its borders to Turkey and Azerbaijan both blocked due to ongoing international disputes.