Diaspora-Armenians willing to join border defense forces –

In an interview with Tert.am, a Defense Ministry official said that many Armenians from diaspora communities have expressed willingness to join the defense operations on frontlines of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh amid the continuing armed tension.

Major-General Vardan Avetisyan, who heads the Ministry’s Public Relations Department, said many now look forward to a decision or permission to travel to Armenia.

“Most different specialists have applied, naturally for heading to the frontline; the volunteers are first of all participants of the [Karabakh] liberation war. Narrow specialists – mainly from the technology, communications and IT sector – have applied to us. Thousands of our compatriots from the Diaspora too, have expressed willingness to visit Armenia to head to the frontline. They only wait for a corresponding decision or permission to arrive in their homeland,” he said, noting that the national armed forces are not now in an urgent need for replenishment.

Avetisyan considered the expression of such willingness an encouraging factor and a good moral support for the Armenian soldier.

“The commander and soldier standing on the frontline receives an unimaginable power from our compatriots’ willingness to be next to them. The mere realization of the fact that an Armenian living in another part of the world is ready to leave his family, work and warm cornet to stand by the soldier in the trenches makes our servicemen enthusiastic,” he added.