YEREVAN. – The “nation-army” concept is not a consumer brand, but an ideology around which both the authorities and the opposition shall build their policy.

Armenian News-NEWS.am has learned from the Public TV of Armenia that Minister of Defense, Vigen Sargsyan, told the aforesaid to reporters, commenting on the statements made by opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) Party Founding Chairman and First President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, in his keynote address at the recent ANC Party convention.

“All peace initiatives become possible only in the case when the country’s defense system is strong enough,” noted Sargsyan. He added that peace is now impossible without a strong defense system.

The Armenian defense minister stressed that the assessment, which Ter-Petrosyan made with respect to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, is very surprising for him.

“He [Aliyev] more or less considers the Armenians worldwide as the number one enemy, and [Armenia’s capital city of] Yerevan—a historical Azerbaijani land,” noted Sargsyan. “Against this backdrop, assessing him as a pragmatic, acceptable statesman, I believe, in some ways deviates from the reality.”

Vigen Sargsyan also recalled that Armenians have other examples to be proud of, aside from national football squad captain and Manchester United (England) midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

“First of all, we are proud of our soldiers standing at the border,” stressed the minister.