Armenia spent over 115 billion drams on relief for displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh

The Armenian government has allocated over 115 billion drams in relief since the launch of the social support program for forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh in October 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan has said.

“Of course there were additional sums provided through support of international organizations, for which we are grateful, but we’ve been guided by the principle that whenever we decide that a program is required, we can’t wait, so we implement it with our budgetary means, and then there are partners who want to join, which is commendable,” he said during an interview with Public Television.

85-90% of the funds were allocated exclusively from the state budget.

He said there was no need for any additional international forum for mobilizing extra funds.

He said the expectations from mobilizing funds through international forums are overestimated and the government doesn’t build its policy on such expectations.

“We don’t see such additional opportunity, if we were to see which problem is unresolved that could be resolved through organizing any additional forum, of course we could do that, but we don’t see the need for that at this phase,” Khachatryan said.

A demonstration took place on March 29 in Yerevan, where organizers called for international conferences to be organized to raise funds for supporting the forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh. The demonstrators also called on the authorities to maintain the 40+10 housing support program and ensure the protection of their political rights. After the demonstration, Deputy PM Tigran Khachatryan met with the organizers of the protest.

Khachatryan said the government was ready to discuss the support programs and changes with representatives of the forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh.