Armenian defense minister: Besides achievements, Armenian army also has
some gaps and flaws

2009-01-24 14:57:00

ArmInfo. On Jan 24, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan summed up
the results of the work done in 2008.

At today’s press-conference dedicated to the results of the year 2008,
Seyran Ohanyan stressed that the Armed Forces of Armenia worthily
implemented their most important task – defense of state
borders. According to him, in 2008 serious work was done to improve the
engineer installations on the border to enhance the combat proficiency
as aggression may be displayed against Armenia. Considerable work was
done to upgrade the technical and material-technical base and armament.
For this purpose, a Logistics Department was set up in the structure of
the Armenian defense ministry late in 2008. According to the minister,
another priority in 2008 was raising the proficiency of command staffs
of all levels, as well as improving the military education quality and
selecting the future specialists. The minister qualified introduction
of contractual non-commissioned service as one of the achievements in
2008. This outlines the prospects for an army operating on a
contractual basis. In addition, several exercises were successfully
held in Armenia. Serious attention was paid to spot checks, he said.
Such checks raise the level of security awareness. Seyran Ohanyan also
touched upon the legislation related to the defense sphere and stressed
the significance of adoption of the Law "On defense".

The defense minister said that in 2009 the priority will be to continue
the reforms. One of the tasks in this direction is to review the
defense conception. "One can state that the tasks faced by the
army are implemented. However, this doesn’t mean that there are no gaps
or flaws. There are both gaps and flaws and the leadership of the
Armenian Armed Forces sees and assesses them, as well as takes relevant
measures to fill the gaps",- Ohanyan stressed without going into detail
regarding the specified negative phenomena.