"Hraparak" newspaper writes:
"Defence Minister Suren Papikyan had a closed meeting with a group of MPs of the ruling faction in the National Assembly for about 2 hours yesterday. The main item on the agenda was the draft law on shortening the term of military service, changing it from 2 years to 18 months. Other projects related to the army were briefly discussed.
NA Vice Presidents Ruben Rubinyan and Hakob Arshakyan also participated. Although, according to our information, the generals in the General Assembly are against this change, believing that significantly reducing the number of the army will cause great risks, but the ruling group has decided to adopt the project as a matter of urgency. This means that the project will become a law by the end of the year, because the winter conscription begins in January, and the CP wants this populist project a day earlier, until 2026. to implement the next elections.
We were told that during the discussion, Papikyan did not hide the riskiness of the project, as a result of which the number of servicemen will be significantly reduced, according to the government's calculation, it is about 10 thousand, but he assured that after a year and a half, the border duty in the army will return to normal, at the same time, the number of contract servicemen will be increased.
In the same package, Hayk Sargsyan tried to include his proposals, which were rejected by the CP, in particular, to serve in the army for a shorter period of time in exchange for money, but the CP members insisted on the previous position.
