FROM THE BIOGRAPHY OF NEW DEFENSE MINISTER OF ARMENIA MIKHAIL ARUTYUNYAN
Translated by Pavel Pushkin

Source: Krasnaya Zvezda, April 27, 2007, p. 3
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 2, 2007 Wednesday

By a decree of President Robert Kocharyan, Colonel General Mikhail
Arutyunyan was appointed Defense Minister of Armenia. Before the
appointment, Arutyunyan was chief of the main staff of the Armenian
armed forces and acting Defense Minister. After the appointment of
the Defense Minister, the government of Armenia is considered to be
fully formed.

Arutyunyan was born on February 10 of 1946 in Sagiyan village of the
Shemakha District of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic. In
1967, Arutyunyan graduated from the Baku higher military combined-arms
command school. In 1976, he graduated from the intelligence department
of the Military Academy named after Frunze.

In 1988, he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of
the Armed Forces of the USSR. During his service in the Soviet Armed
Forces, he served on posts of platoon commander, company commander,
chief of staff of a mechanized infantry division, head of a department
of the staff of an army corps, deputy chief of staff of an army,
senior lecturer of the intelligence department of the Military Academy
of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR.

In 1992, Arutyunyan was appointed as senior deputy chief of the main
staff of the armed forces of Armenia and director of the operational
department. Between 1992 and 1994, he was senior deputy chief of the
main staff of the armed forces of Armenia.

In 1994, he was appointed chief of the main staff of the armed forces
and Senior Deputy Defense Minister of Armenia.