Armenia's parliament is in recess after two fights broke out during a debate on Wednesday as lawmakers hurled bottles and other objects across the floor of the house.

The scenes of chaos erupted after a member of the ruling Civil Contract party, Hayk Sargsyan, called some of the country's previous defense ministers "traitors," the TASS news agency reported.

Water bottles were thrown at Sargsyan and on the video footage that has emerged he can be seen throwing two bottles back into the assembly. 

When the session resumed other members of the house traded kicks and punches after Vahe Hakobyan of the Hayastan opposition accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of being a lying populist.

According to Radio Liberty, this was the third brawl to break out in the last two days as tensions between politicians continue to run high.

Last year Azerbaijani forces drove ethnic Armenian forces out of swathes of territory they had controlled since the 1990s in a 44-day war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The fighting ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire that saw Azerbaijan take control of parts of Karabakh and surrounding districts. Moscow has deployed peacekeepers in the area to oversee the ceasefire it mediated to end the fighting.

The current parliament convened for the first time earlier this month after this summer's elections won by Pashinyan's party.

Video editor: Natalia Luz