Azatutyun.am. The Armenian government is planning to increase its defense expenditures by 7 percent to 554 billion drams ($1.38 billion) next year, Finance Minister Vahe Hovannisian said on Wednesday.
“As a result, our defense spending will be equivalent to 5.3 percent of GDP, down by 0.3 percentage points from 2023,” Hovannisian told the Armenian parliament as he presented the government’s draft state budget for 2024.
He said that 42 percent of 695 billion drams in capital spending planned by the government in 2024 will also be channeled into national defense. This presumably includes the construction of new barracks, other military installations and border fortifications.
Armenia’s defense budget was projected to soar by as much as 46 percent this year. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on November 16 that his government will keep increasing it for purely defensive purposes.
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“I’m sure that all of our neighbors realize that we do not intend to attack anyone,” he said in an apparent effort to reassure Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani government spending on defense and national security is reportedly due to total $3.5 billion this year. President Ilham Aliyev said recently that Azerbaijan’s will continue its military buildup despite its victory in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Baku has denounced India, France and other foreign nations for selling weapons to Armenia. Meeting with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Moscow on Tuesday, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov reportedly said that “efforts to arm Armenia pose a threat to regional peace and stability.”
