Interfax, Russia
Russia & CIS General Newswire
February 24, 2008 Sunday 4:35 PM MSK

Some Armenian military officials leave Karabakh war veterans union

YEREVAN Feb 24

Some high-ranking Armenian military officials have announced in a
statement that they are withdrawing from the Yerkrapa Union of
Volunteers, the organization of Nagorno-Karabakh war veterans.

"Respecting the role and importance of the Yerkrapa Union of
Volunteers, as well as the memory of soldiers-liberators, being
guided by the call of duty to the Motherland and the wholehearted
service to the nation, we terminate our membership in Yerkrapa," says
the statement issued by the press service of the Armenian Defense
Ministry and obtained by Interfax on Sunday.

The document was signed by chief of the Armenian General Staff, First
Deputy Defense Minister Seiran Oganian, as well as six major generals
and eight colonels of the Armenian Army.

After the February 19 election, a group of Yerkrapa members "got
engaged without the permission of the Yerkrapa board into indecent
activities that discredit the name and authority of the organization
and that hinder the further development of independent Armenia’s
nationhood."

"They are being used to achieve indecent political aims, while the
president of the union does nothing to prevent this," the statement
says.

The Yerkrapa Union of Volunteers was founded in 1993. The union,
which is a kind of a paramilitary organization, now brings together
over 10,000 people. Yerkrapa is headed by Armenian Deputy Defense
Minister Lieut. Gen. Manvel Grigorian.

The opposition claimed at its rally in Yerevan that Grigorian and his
colleague, Armenian Deputy Defense Minister Gagik Melkonian, had
joined the ranks of the protesters. The Armenian Defense Ministry has
dismissed the assertions.