At its Cabinet meeting on Thursday, the government made a decision to allocate 2,161,600,000 drams from the reserve fund to the Police for the establishment of Patrol Police in Armenia.

The matter was presented by Deputy Chief of Police Ara Fidanyan during the Cabinet session.

And Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted that this decision was connected with the intention to have Patrol Police. He said that although they had previously planned to establish Patrol Police in March, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war, and now the program was planned to be implemented in the summer.

"Our future Patrol Police officers are now undergoing training at the Police Academy. And it is very important that not only police officers are involved here, but also civilians who will be wearing police uniforms for the first time," said the Prime Minister, adding that this program will launch in the capital Yerevan, then it will be implemented in Shirak and Lori Provinces, and then in the other provinces.

"This will give a new ‘breath’ and impetus to the Police reforms in general; in fact, there will be new [Patrol Police] cars, a new design. It should also be said that we have made a decision to set a higher salary within the Patrol Police as well," Pashinyan emphasized.