“The desire to emigrate is real and in real time. In other words, there are more people who wish to emigrate now than there will be tomorrow, when people come out of this state of shock,” the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs, Zareh Sinanyan, said after the session of government regarding the current situation at the airport. According to him, emigration sentiments need to be evaluated in accordance with the time period. “At the moment, there are more people who want to emigrate than there will be tomorrow. We can also say that there were more people who wanted to emigrate in December than there are now.”
According to him, he is not aware of the statistics, including the post-war period, but he is not surprised by these sentiments. “There weren’t any huge waves of emigration during the war due to the fact that people did not have the opportunity to leave. Now, when aerial communication opens, the world opens for Armenia, and Armenia opens for the world, we will be able to have a more realistic picture.”
When asked if immigration is expected, Zareh Sinanyan said that these expectations always exist, but it is obvious that people are feeling discouraged due to the bad results of the war. Therefore, a large wave of migration is not expected within a short period of time. “I am prepared to visit the airports and familiarize myself with the problems that emigrating citizens are experiencing.”
Regarding the high prices of tickets, Sinanyan said that this is not under Armenia’s control; that is decided by the market. “We do not have a national airline for us to be able to set prices. The market will regulate itself, and the price will be what it needs to be. We simply cannot have an impact on the prices.”
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