SERZH SARKISYAN CONFIRMED DEPUTY DEFENSE MINISTER’S SWITCHING TO OPPOSITION

Regnum
March 14 2008
Russia

Newly elected president of Armenia Serzh Sarkisyan is convinced that
it is wrong to use army in political purposes. He spoke about it in
a television interview on March 13. Armenian army has always acted
within the Constitutional legal field, and will continue following this
tradition, Sarkisyan stated. "Speaking of the today’s situation, it is
natural that the state of emergency is executed by the army," he said.

He expressed regret regarding the fact that deputy minister of defense
Gen. Manvel Grigoryan "for some reason decided to become involved in
politics and not to obey his supreme commander".

Sarkisyan has stressed that Manvel Grigoryan is his comrade in arms.

Sarkisyan said that he, however, has never tried to involve Grigoryan
in politics. He said it hurt him that Grigoryan acted so. Sarkisyan
also believes it is necessary to analyze the situation and solve
the issue.

The prime minister has also stated he does not agree that there
are too many generals in Armenia. "I have compared proportions of
numbers of troops and generals in our state and neighboring countries,
Russia, NATO, and we have always been behind them in the number of
generals but not their training," he said. "I would like to assure
you that we have brilliant generals who are second to no one in their
knowledge. We must speak about it and see the good things. I am not
saying that we must ignore bad things, but we also must see the good
ones," observed Sarkisyan.

At a rally on February 21, first president of Armenia Levon
Ter-Petrosyan announced that generals Manvel Grigoryan and Gurgen
Melkonyan joined opposition. However, later defense ministry refuted
the information, and defense minister said that all claims about
generals being involved in politics were lies.