Armenia to shift gradually to professional army - Pashinyan

YEREVAN, August 24. /ARKA/. Armenia will gradually switch to a professional army, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said today to lawmakers.

“Armenia will gradually make the transition to a professional army. The structure of mandatory military service and training camps will change significantly. We will also modernize the army, introduce an automated control system, increase the attractiveness of military service through a new policy of salaries and social guarantees, as well as improve the quality of military training and more extensively involve women in the combat units," he said.

Pashinyan stressed that the idea to involve more women in the armed forces is prompted by an exclusively pragmatic calculation: women make up the majority of the population of the country and the insufficient involvement of this resource in any sphere means a distortion of the country's development potential.

"This does not mean that women should be drawn into the army on an equal basis with men. It is about the potential, its full use, this potential still needs to be unlocked," he said.

The prime minister said also that specific agreements were reached with Russia that will help Armenia to reform and modernize its armed forces.

Pashinyan said that significant changes will be made in the National Security Service’s (NNS) structure. The NSS should deal with counterintelligence, the border troops will remain part of it and it will also be in charge of the fight against terrorism and extremism and the protection of the constitutional order. According to Pashinyan, a separate Foreign Intelligence Service will be set up, while the State Security Service will be taken out of NSS control and placed under the control of the Prime Minister. --0—