ARMENIAN ARMY STRONGER TODAY THAN DURING KARABAKH WAR

PanARMENIAN.Net
26.01.2010 15:46 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Considering the current armistice regime, the
Armenian army should be always ready for war, says Hrayr Karapetyan,
Head of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defense, National Security
and Internal Affairs.

"Over the recent years, Armenia’s Parliament has passed several
legal acts on enhancing army conscription procedures etc. But certain
problems still remain unresolved," he told today a news conference
in Yerevan.

At that, he stressed the importance of contract service, considering
the sharp decrease in Armenia’s population in the early 1990s. "The
age qualification requirements have now changed. Healthy men below
the age 50 are eligible for contract service," he said.

According to him, the committee collaborates with Defense Ministry to
prepare a package of changes aimed at prevention of illegal conduct
in army.

"We certainly have much to do. It is necessary to create legal bases in
the sphere, enhancing the legislation, healing the moral-psychological
atmosphere in army, improving the competences of soldiers and creating
a professional army," Committee Chairman said, adding that Armenia
army is stronger today than during Karabakh war.

The Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia represents the Army,
Air Force, Air Defense, and Border Guard.

The Commander-in-Chief of the military is the President of Armenia,
currently Serzh Sargsyan. The Ministry of Defense is in charge of
political leadership, currently headed by Seyran Ohanian, while
military command remains in the hands of the General Staff, headed
by the Chief of Staff, who is currently Lieutenant-General Yuri
Khatchaturov. Armenia established a Ministry of Defense on January
28, 1992.

Since 1992, Armenia has been a member of the Collective Security
Treaty Organization, which acts as another deterrent to Azeri military
intervention over Nagorno-Karabakh. The Treaty on Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe was ratified by the Armenian parliament in July 1992.

It establishes comprehensive limits on key categories of military
equipment, such as tanks, artillery, armored combat vehicles, combat
aircraft, and combat helicopters, and provides for the destruction
of weaponry in excess of those limits.

The State Committee on Defense (under the Council of Ministers)
was created by a Government Decision in 1991.