YEREVAN. – New residential houses will be opened in the rural communities which have infrastructure that can serve more residents. The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia, Mesrop Arakelyan, stated this in a talk with reporters Wednesday, referring to the resettlement of the displaced population of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

"Nine thousand families do not have a permanent residence in Artsakh. Several hundred dwellings have been built; the general project is for three years. There are villages whose infrastructure enables to increase residential houses; that is, the population of that village will be resettled to an existing village; the [respective] opinion of the population of the given village was also taken into account. Also, all the social obligations of the citizens of Artsakh are properly being fulfilled," said Arakelyan.

Asked whether there is a principle that a person who has lost a house in the city should get a house in the city, the minister responded that this principle is adopted in this project

According to the minister, the medical and social assessment is almost over for the people who have become disabled as a result of the recent Artsakh war.

According to Arakelyan, about 3 billion [drams] of loan liabilities of the people of Artsakh have been pardoned by loan companies and banks. "Of course, I do not rule out that there may be some shortcomings; these shortcomings may be due to the lack of information, although the Ministry of Defense [of Armenia] has transferred—through the Central Bank—the data on the killed and wounded servicemen. There is no global problem in terms of the system," Mesrop Arakelyan added.