YEREVAN. – We have set ourselves the task of having a new Patrol Service already in the first quarter of 2021, which means that the entire external service of the Police must be completely changed, and it must be changed, both in form and content. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this at Thursday's Cabinet meeting of the government of Armenia.

He said that the first respective stage is the education stage. "According to our preliminary agreement, it was supposed to start in April, but it was delayed a bit because of the coronavirus," he added.

The Prime Minister noted that the entire infrastructure of the Patrol Service shall be completely new. "In the second stage, we will create a Ministry of Internal Affairs," he said. "The Ministry of Internal Affairs will implement the whole future policy."

According to Pashinyan, there has always been a conflict between the contents of the political and military parts of the issue regarding the establishment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. "In order to resolve this conflict, we have decided that we will have a Ministry of Internal Affairs," he added. "Here, the political and civil sectors will be clearly separated from the military sector. The Armenia Police will be in special relations with the Ministry of Internal Affairs; it will be part of it. These relations will be almost like the relations between the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff."