March 28, 2019 - 15:48 AMT
Armenia PM defends Syria mission as “morally, humanly correct”

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Thursday, March 28 that sending a humanitarian mission to Syria means responding in kind to the people who helped Armenians fleeing the Genocide in 1915.

“Armenian doctors have already performed more than 100 medical interventions in Syria,” he said.

“If an Armenian doctor saves the life a person whose grandfather helped a survivor of the Genocide, I think we are in a way paying the historical debt to the Syrian people.”

Pashinyan said children play and hang out in mined areas that the Armenian sappers are working to demine and thus help save the descendants of people who once saved their ancestors.

While admitting the dangers of the mission, the Prime Minister defended the decision anyway, maintaining that it boosts Armenia’s sovereignty and describing it as "morally, humanly and politically correct."

The Armenian government has sent a non-combat humanitarian squad of 83 doctors, sappers, and other servicemen to Syria to provide assistance to the Armenian community in Aleppo. Armenia had previously sent four airlifts of humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people.