YEREVAN, JANUARY 31, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia, Chairman of the National Security Council Serzh Sargsyan on January 31 convened a session of the National Security Council during which the 2018-2024 draft modernization program of the Armenian Armed Forces and ensuring the legal process of constitutional reforms were discussed, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

Defense minister Vigen Sargsyan reported the first issue to the session participants.  

Before that the President presented his approaches and assessments over this Armed Forces modernization program prepared by the defense ministry. In early 2018 the program draft was discussed in-detail at the defense ministry with the presence of President Serzh Sargsyan.

“Dear members of the Security Council, as you remember, last year on October 24 I tasked the defense minister to prepare a long-term development program for 2018-2024. And this instruction was associated with the following factor: new challenges emerge in the region, and the best way to counter these threats is to have a long-term development program. We saw questions rose among the public, some people said why till now the defense ministry or the Armed Forces do not have development programs, long-term programs. Of course, they had, programs always existed, but the difference between the former and the current program is that the previous programs were in many cases short-term, and the programs which were called long-term, were more similar to wishes, vision and ideas. This program differs from the remaining ones in a sense that it is a targeted program: there is certainty – measurability, there are deadlines, as well as calculated qualitative and financial figures. The defense minister and the chief of the general staff, of course, before this reported me about the program, then I had a chance to discuss this program with the leadership of the defense ministry. Today, in my opinion, there is a program which is well developed, there are targets, figures, and the most importantly there are financial calculations. What I say doesn’t mean that now we cannot make changes in this program, of course, we can, that’s why it is submitted for the approval of the Security Council, and then we will proceed”, the President said.

The Security Council approved the presented approaches based on the discussion and tasked the government to launch them and submitted for the President’s approval.

Justice minister Davit Harutyunyan reported on the second issue which related to legally ensuring the process of constitutional reforms.

The minister said 5 out of 7 constitutional laws envisaged by this process are completely adopted, the one has been adopted at the Parliament at the first reading, and the other will be discussed during the upcoming four-day sitting in the Parliament in February. The minister reported that 27 packages of laws within the frames of the same process are also adopted.

During the session the results achieved from the process of ensuring the constitutional reforms were approved and the government was tasked to continue their implementation and ensure the process of reaching them to the logical end.