Serzh Sarkisyan confirmed deputy defense minister's switching to opposition
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.
18:11 03/14/2008
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