Ruling party proposes to raise conscription age in Armenia

Deputy of the National Assembly of Armenia from the ruling Civil Contract faction Hayk Sargsyan considers it necessary to raise the conscription age in the republic.

“I think that the conscription age established in Armenia (18-27 years) is a low threshold. In the near future, I will initiate a discussion on raising this threshold to 40 years,” Sargsyan said at a briefing, Caliber.Az reports, citing Armenian media.

As the parliamentarian noted, in a number of countries the conscription age is higher than in Armenia.

Earlier, the parliamentarian presented details of a bill that would allow draft dodgers over 27 years of age to avoid criminal prosecution by serving in the army or transferring money to the budget.

Moreover, Sargsyan said that proceeding from statistics, the number of conscripts is decreasing every year.

“Armenia is greatly concerned that over the past 15 years, every year we have had fewer conscripts than the previous year. There are problems in this sphere. Those citizens who do not want to serve do not serve, leave the country, or renounce citizenship. We had more than 44,000 conscripts in 2010, while over the subsequent nine years, this number decreased by 44 per cent. The number of military personnel decreased from 44,000 to 24,000,” Sargsyan told journalists.