Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Nov 18 2004

Armenia’s military expenses to make up over $93m in 2005

Armenian Minister for Finance and Economics Vardan Khachatrian said
during parliamentary discussions of Armenia’s 2005 state budget that
the country’s state budget will make up $611 million. Of the sum,
$103.356 will be spent on education and $93.212 on defense.
Khachatrian noted that the state budget’s educational expenses have
exceeded for the first time the military ones over the last 10 years.

Sergey Ohanian, `defense minister’ of the self-proclaimed Upper
Garabagh Republic, in his interview with the Armenian public
television, conveyed his concerns to the country’s authorities. `If
you want peace, be ready for a war,’ Ohanian stressed.
During parliamentary discussions of Azerbaijan’s draft 2005 state
budget, which envisioned 12% of military expenses, some MPs expressed
their concerns over the fact that the military expenses were below
the ones envisaged in Armenia’s state budget.
Speaker Murtuz Alasgarov, in his turn, underlined that Azerbaijan’s
military expenses for 2005 are twice as much as those of Armenia.*