Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan introduced the new Director of the National Security Service Armen Abazyan to the high-ranking staff of the agency.

In his remarks the PM said that Armenia is going through a rather difficult time when the National Security Service must be able to carry out its role of the state’s backbone.

 “I am certain that this is exactly how it will happen. Certainly these are times when we must analyze what has happened and why. I have to say that my conclusion remains the same. The most difficult and major problem for us is that, in our country, unfortunately we couldn’t reach a duly level of establishment of institutions. Essentially, after 2018 we took out systemic corruption and oligarchy from the state administration system, but during this time we couldn’t develop existing systems in logic as effectively. There were objective and subjective reasons for this, because for example in case of the National Security Service the biggest issue and challenge for me was that on one hand we must act in a way so that the system – pardon for this word - doesn’t get broken, but on the other hand so that the system becomes compliant with the modern challenges. In this context this is a difficult problem which we haven’t yet solved but we must solve it.

Paashinyan thanked the former Director Argishti Kyaramyan for his service, noting that he assumed office in a difficult time. The PM expressed certainty that Kyaramyan will use his potential for the country in the future.

“I want to thank Mr. Abazyan and wish good luck to all those present here. We must make conclusions from what happened, we must talk and discuss what happened, why, why it happened that way. We must be able to reach accurate conclusions,” Pashinyan said.

“A very difficult and serious work awaits us, including in terms of maintaining public and state security. We must accept this challenge, withstand, having the strengthening of our state as the goal…”