YEREVAN. – As of 10am Monday, military reserve officer Tsolak Khachatryan has declared an indefinite hunger strike outside the main building of the government of the Republic of Armenia (RA).

"I have declared my hunger strike in connection with the fact that the government reserves itself the right to issue obvious unconstitutional by-laws. It is about the decision 898N adopted on August 8, 2018, which was issued based on Clause 16 of Article 61 of the RA Law on the Status of a Serviceman, which was declared unconstitutional and invalid a month before that.

People are obligated to me to recompense me for annual vacations not given to me. They did it partially—and after a criminal case was initiated for intentional non-fulfillment of the court decision.

The Ministry of Defense provided [me] more than 4 million drams instead of 14 million drams. They refer to the law provision which is obviously unconstitutional," Khachatryan said.

"My demands are clear. I qualify my actions as self-defense, as I have won at three instances, I have been considered fair by the Constitutional Court, the Human Rights Defender, etc.," the reserve officer added, in particular.

The Investigative Committee of Armenia had informed Armenian News-NEWS.am that a criminal case had been launched against Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan and some other officials—and based on a report by reserve officer Tsolak Khachatryan.

According to Khachatryan, the aforesaid court decision had entered into force on January 22, but the Ministry of Defense had contacted him five months later only and asked for a bank account. "But no date has been mentioned as to when the money will be transferred; it is about close to 14 million drams," Khachatryan had added.