The government team is being completed: 11 of the 12 ministerial seats are already filled — there are reappointments and there are new appointments.
Moments ago the president’s decree was published: at the prime minister’s recommendation, Vahagn Khachatryan was appointed Minister of High-Tech Industry; he will replace Hayk Chobanyan, the former governor of Tavush, who occupied the ministerial seat for 4 months. Vahagn Khachatryan was from the Armenian National Congress, a former mayor of Yerevan, a former deputy.
The former Minister of Justice, Rustam Badasyan, is now the chairman of the State Revenue Committee. Karen Andreasyan, a 44-year-old lawyer who also served as Armenia’s Human Rights Defender for 5 years, will be appointed Minister of Justice.
“I want to promise that together with our team, together with this young and very capable team, we will be able to finally bring justice to everyone throughout the country,” said Andreasyan.
“Ultimately, the feeling of the presence of justice and fairness is the most important thing, one of the most important tasks that our people set before us back during the 2018 revolution,” noted Pashinyan.
The Foreign Minister’s seat is vacant. When former Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan was appointed First Deputy Foreign Minister weeks ago, the press wrote that Grigoryan is the future minister. For now, no appointment has been made.
The new Minister of Defense is Arshak Karapetyan: in 2018 he was an adviser to Prime Minister Pashinyan, then First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, and since the end of July he was Deputy Minister of Defense. “We are all under great responsibility,” Prime Minister Pashinyan stressed while presenting the new Minister of Defense.
“Fate has placed this upon us, has set this agenda before us, and we must come out from under these challenges with honor,” said the prime minister.
