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| - Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has denounced "an attempted military coup" in the latest twist in the impoverished Caucasus country's troubled post-Soviet history. Here is a timeline: Armenia declares independence from the crumbling Soviet Union on September 23, 1991 after a landslide referendum. Former dissident Levon Ter-Petrosyan then wins the country's first presidential election. Meanwhile, ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave of neighbouring Azerbaijan, break away from Baku in 1988. More than 30,000 die and thousands more flee in the bloody war that follows. A ceasefire in 1994 leaves the region's status disputed, leaving the two countries at daggers drawn. Isolated in his attempts to find a resolution to the conflict, Ter-Petrosyan resigns in 1998 and is replaced by Robert Kocharian. Gunmen storm the parliament building in 1999 and kill nationalist prime minister Vazgen Sarkisian and seven other politicians in what authorities call an attempted coup. Kocharian is re-elected president in 2003 for a second five-year term in a vote marred by irregularities, according to observers. Pro-Russian former army officer Serzh Sarkisian wins the next presidential election in 2008 in the first round, which the opposition denounces as fraudulent. Bloody clashes between police and supporters of the defeated Ter-Petrosyan later break out leaving 10 dead. Armenia signs an agreement in 2009 with its bitter enemy Turkey to normalise relations. The so-called Zurich protocols would lead to the opening of the frozen border between the uneasy neighbours, still dogged by the massacre of Armenians during World War I. The deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman forces between 1915-1917 is formally recognised as genocide by a number of countries, including France and Russia, but Turkey rejects the description. But the protocols are never ratified and in 2018 the Armenia ditches the process. In 2013 Serzh Sarkisian is re-elected president after his party wins a crushing victory in legislative elections. Two years later daily protests paralyse the capital Yerevan after the government hike electricity prices. A referendum transforms the country into a parliamentary republic in December 2015. The oppositiion attack it as a bid by Sarkisian to remain in power after his second presidential term in 2018. Gunmen demanding Sarkisian quit seize a police station in Yerevan in July 2016, taking officers and medical personnel hostage. The stand-off leaves two officers dead and triggers mass anti-government protests. The following year Sarkisian's Republican Party overwhelmingly wins legislative elections in a disputed vote. Lawmakers elect Armen Sarkisian, no relation to the outgoing Serzh Sarkisian, as the new president in March 2018, a now largely ceremonial role. Despite days of protests in Yerevan, parliament elects Serzh Sarkisian as prime minister the following month. Opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan is detained -- then released -- amid fresh protests. Sarkisian then resigns after a decade in power and Pashinyan is elected prime minister in May. Armenia is forced to sign a humiliating Russian-brokered accord with Azerbaijan in December 2020 after its defeat in six weeks of heavy fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh that claims more than 6,000 lives. With Karabakh reduced to a rump and its future political status in limbo, protesters take to the streets of Yerevan branding Pashinyan a "traitor". On Thursday Pashinyan accuses the military of an attempted coup and brings his supporters onto the streets, with the opposition urging him to step down to avoid bloodshed or even civil war. bur/jmy/fg/har
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