Armenia forced to have current military capacity for security reasons, says Sargsyan

Armenia is forced to have the military which it has today, because it will enable to solve security issues of the country, President Serzh Sargsyan told during an interview to ARMENIA TV.

Global Military index has ranked Armenia as the most militarized country of Europe and the third most militarized country in the world.

Asked whether or not it concerns him that we are becoming an army-state, the president said: “No, of course I’m not concerned. First of all this is our flaw, the authority’s flaw, that we didn’t carry out explanatory work as soon as this kind of information emerged. You know, this kind of ratings, this kind of standards, are always unique and aren’t what they seem at first glance. What do I mean…You are saying – militarized state, the first impression is that there is a tank in the street, and even if there isn’t, that the state is generally militarized, civil rights are restricted etc. Thank God that is not true”.

The president said this rating has been decided upon several standards, for example the number of heavy equipment per capita of the population. “Of course, in normal conditions no one would think that a population of three million would have such armed forces, but have we voluntarily accepted this path? We are forced to do so. On one hand we are accused that we are weaker militarily than Azerbaijan, on the other hand they say we are militarized, so how should we understand this, which is that golden average? We are forced, we are simply forced to have that minimum which will give us the possibility to solve our security issues. And April of 2016 showed that we haven’t allowed ourselves unnecessary things and we don’t have unnecessary things”, he said.