YEREVAN-
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian on Tuesday appointed a Kremlin-friendly technocrat as the ex-Soviet nation's new prime minister, after the last premier quit following anger over a hostage crisis.
"The President signed a decree on the appointment of Karen Karapetyan on Tuesday morning," Sarkisian's office said in a statement.
Former mayor of the capital city Yerevan, Karapetyan, 53, has previously held senior posts at Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom's subsidiary, Mezhregiongaz, and Moscow-based Gazprombank.
Karapetyan's predecessor, Hovik Abrahamian, resigned last week after a protracted hostage crisis highlighted popular discontent over official failings in the nation of 2.9 million.
A group of anti-government gunmen seized a police building in Yerevan for two weeks, killing two police and taking several high-ranking officers hostage. After clashes and lengthy negotiations they surrendered on July 31.
The crisis sparked anti-government protests that saw clashes with police and Sarkisian promised to reshuffle his cabinet in the aftermath.
Armenia -- the Kremlin's closest ally in the Caucasus region -- is a member of a Moscow-led economic union and hosts a Russian military base, and the new premier looks set to maintain those close links.
"Karapetyan is widely perceived in Armenia as Russia's protege," political analyst Stefan Safaryan told AFP. "He is a player on Russia's field."
Armenia has a military pact with Russia and relies on Moscow for its weapons supplies as it faces off against neighbouring Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.
The festering feud over the territory -- seized by ethnic-Armenians from Azerbaijan in a brutal war in the early 1990s -- erupted into its worst violence in decades in early April.
A Russian-brokered ceasefire put an end to four days of heavy clashes -- which claimed at least 110 lives -- but tensions remain high as Moscow has mediated between the two sides.
Armenia's economy has been hit by the spillover from the economic crisis in Russia. Some 30 percent of the population lives below the official poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank.
