The parents of contract soldiers who began serving during the recent Artsakh war told Aravot Daily in front of the government building that they understood after the trilateral agreement was signed that their children’s situation was dire. After that, they appealed to the Ministry of Defense and the government to demand that their children be brought back from Artsakh, their military service term be shorted by at least six months, and that they be provided with health and education benefits.
“Please pay attention, we are referring to contract soldiers, not our troops. We are obligated to defend Artsakh, where we have five thousand heroes and where we have spilled blood. Artsakh is our historical homeland. But if that entire burden must be placed on 18-20-year-old children who also carried the burden of the entire 44-Day War, that is not fair. Our approach has always been constructive: our children’s service should be organized in comparatively comfortable places and conditions,” Hrayr Karapetyan, one of the parents, said.
The parents gathered in front of the government building also provided some details about their children’s current service, but they also asked that these details not be published for respectable reasons. “It has been five months. We have met in different areas, and we have met with the Prime Minister four times. Today will be the fifth. They tell us that they agree with us, they share our opinions, our demands are reasonable, and our soldiers are worthy of encouragement. But they can only talk. Nothing has happened yet. We don’t care about their reasons anymore. We also demand that the military records of conscripts who fought in the war be clearly marked in their booklets so that they can avoid possible problems in the future, because there are many soldiers today against whom criminal cases have been filed. There is a saying that now, the parents are ready to do anything to ensure a bright future for their children who miraculously escaped,” the parents said.
When asked about what steps they would take if their demands were partially addressed, the parents said that they were not authorized to make a statement on everyone’s behalf. “Obviously, we will discuss this. We want to reiterate that we are not enemies of our country and we are not going to take steps that will harm our statehood. Our proposals are constructive.
Read also
Our children fought heroically, and if we were able to get into contact with them during the war, they assured us that they would fight until the end. And we asked them to fight in a way that would ensure that neither they nor their parents would be ashamed. We want our children’s service to end not as deserters, but in a way that they were heroes for everyone during the 44-Day War.
Look, we are simply asking for health and education benefits. There are soldiers who participated in the war who have appealed with health problems, but they are told that the state’s responsibilities towards them have ended, and they need to receive treatment through their personal means. It seems as though the homeland belongs to soldiers, but soldiers are secondary issues for the state. Do soldiers deserve that kind of treatment?”
Ashot Hakobyan
