Prime Minister Rejects Reversal on Energy Hike, As Russia Urges ‘Compromise’

Protesters on Baghramyan Avenue continue their demands into the fourth day (Photolure)
YEREVAN (RFE/RL)””Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian on Thursday defended state regulators’ decision to raise electricity prices and urged thousands of protesters to unblock a major street in Yerevan on the fourth day of their nonstop demonstrations against the controversial measure.
Abrahamian also announced that the Armenian government will compensate some 105,000 low-income families for the more than 16 percent tariff increases authorized by the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) last week. Monthly poverty benefits paid to them will be raised by 2,000 drams ($4.2), he said.
The Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimates that the tariff hike will cost the average family living below the official poverty line only 1,400 drams in additional monthly expenditures.
“I would like to appeal to our activists, organizers of those rallies and say that such actions will lead nowhere,”