It is at the suggestion of Minister of Defense Suren Papikyan that the Prime Minister appointed me as Deputy Minister. Hrachya Sargsyan, the former Mayor of Yerevan, then advisor to the prime minister, and now the newly appointed deputy minister of defense of Armenia, told this to reporters after the government Cabinet meeting Friday, responding to the question of whether he was appointed as deputy defense minister to oversee Papikyan.
When asked what he has to do with the defense sector that PM Nikol Pashinyan made such an appointment, Sargsyan responded: “I believe we have the Armed Forces, Chief of [the General] Staff, and the military are engaged in the functions they are engaged in, and together we all contribute to the army with the experience we have. Also, we have civil servants, military in the army. It’s quite a large economy, and the [Yerevan] municipality also was quite a large economy.”
Referring to his incomprehensible appointments, Sargsyan responded: “It’s not incomprehensible, I have those abilities, I believe the Prime Minister has assessed and found [it] suitable.”
When asked if the job of deputy minister of defense is alien to him, Sargsyan said: “The work is not alien at all. There are management functions that need to be coordinated so that we have an end result.”
When asked what, in his opinion, the Armenian army should be like two years from now, the newly appointed deputy minister of defense said that they should increase the army’s combat readiness.
“We need to increase the efficiency of the processes of army management in order to be able to achieve our goals,” he added.
And when asked how the situation is at Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan at the moment, the deputy defense minister responded: “I have been at [this] work for one week. I believe I will answer your questions later on.”
Source : News.am