Caretaker minister doesn’t rule out re-organizing, changing status of diaspora ministry

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 23, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker Minister of Diaspora Mkhitar Hayrapetyan says during 6 months in office he has gotten an impression that from the very beginning the ministry had been created in a symbolic way, bearing a symbolic nature.

At a news conference today, reporters asked Hayrapetyan about his vision for the ministry’s future, taking into account that there has been much talk about optimizing it.

“I have an impression that this agency has not put the most aspiring tasks for itself. The state has not put unsolvable tasks before this agency. In this context my opinion is the following, if the ministry must be exclusively in a symbolic nature, to throw dust into the eyes of the Diaspora and to care for some expectations and needs, then it isn’t mandatory for the format to be in an individual ministry. But I think that the Republic of Armenia can allow itself to have a strong Ministry of Diaspora,” he said.

He said that whatever decision the government will make it will be aimed at organizing the work more efficiently. At the same time, he didn’t rule out the possibility of restructuring the ministry as a separate committee or agency within another ministry.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan