YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia met with mothers of fallen soldiers today at the Yerablur military cemetery.

The women told the Prime Minister that the “1000 dram” fund, the military insurance fund dubbed so because of its mechanism of collection whereby 1000 drams are kept from each employed citizen’s monthly wage, is working only for the families of killed soldiers who died in incidents which took place after January 1, 2015.

In response, the PM said that when the law was passed it was decided that emopoyed citizens will pay 1000 drams a month to the fund. “Initially it was planned that the [compensations] payments will cover incidents which took place after January 1, 2017. I ordered to check the available amounts on the fund and see whether it is impossible to amend the law and make in January 1, 2016. I was told that it was even possible to make in 2015 January 1. Now the law is covering incidents which took place after January 1, 2015. The problem isn’t simply setting this, the problem is to be able to continue giving these amounts. If we were to say that we will give to everyone but then be unable to do so it will be insulting. Now we are saying, the much money is collected in this fund, we will gradually go back towards 2014 and so on. When this law wasn’t covering 2015-2016 much more people were feeling insulted. We are currently going for it step by step,” the PM said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan