Our policy aims to increase the presence of border guards along Armenia’s borders — Prime Minister

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended an event organized on the occasion of the Day of the Border Guard Troops of the National Security Service.

In his speech, PM Pashinyan noted that this year the Day of the Border Guard Troops Serviceman and the Citizen’s Day coincided and congratulated everyone on the occasion of Citizen’s Day. According to the Prime Minister, this coincidence is symbolic because both the citizen and the border have an important fulcrum, and that fulcrum is the state, his office said.

“A citizen without a state, and a border without a state, is impossible. It is at this crossroads, at this intersection, that the ideological transformation underway in the Republic of Armenia is taking place. The border guard is the most important service of the state. It is a military service, but the border guard is also, in a sense, a symbol of peace, a symbol of stability, a symbol of security.

 Our policy is aimed at increasing the presence of border guards along the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Armenia, which is a very important intermediate step on the path to long-term peace, institutional peace, and stability,” noted Pashinyan.

The PM added that today the areas that have been demarcated and come under the control of the Border Guard Troops have acquired a certain demonstrative significance for the Government, as he himself, along with representatives of other state administration bodies, goes to the delimited and demarcated areas to demonstrate what is meant by Real Armenia, what is meant by peace and security.

"I want to emphasize that those small steps we implemented last year, as a result of which any citizen entering or leaving the territory of the Republic of Armenia, during border control, comes into contact only and exclusively with servicemen of the Border Guard Troops of the Republic of Armenia, are a very important milestone for our state, independence, sovereignty, and development," the Prime Minister said.

At the same time, Pashinyan expressed gratitude to the servicemen of the border troops of the Russian Federation and to the Russian Federation itself for carrying out these functions from the first days of independence. “On the other hand, I am happy to emphasize that despite the various and well-known difficulties, we are able to implement such steps today. Today we are able to say that the Republic of Armenia, grateful to all its partners, can confidently assume the protection of its own borders step by step, and this is the medium-term goal that we have set for ourselves.

“Any citizen entering or leaving Armenia will now come into contact only with servicemen of the Border Guard Forces of the Republic of Armenia during border control. This means that a person entering the Republic of Armenia for the first time gets their first impression of what the Republic of Armenia is, what kind of country the Republic of Armenia is, and what kind of people the people of Armenia are, from their contact with the border guard, and this is an extremely important feature,” he said.

The Prime Minister noted that he expects the Border Guard Troops to make special efforts to improve their service.

Summing up his speech, Nikol Pashinyan congratulated everyone on the occasion of the Border Guard Troops Serviceman’s Day and expressed his gratitude for their service, wishing them a good and peaceful service.

Then, the NSS Border Guard Troops servicemen performed a festive parade and demonstration tricks. Prime Minister Pashinyan, accompanied by NSS Director Armen Abazyan, familiarized himself with the technical means of the Border Guard Troops and their capabilities.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and the Director of the National Security Service also paid tribute to the memory of the fallen servicemen who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the homeland.