Republican Party of Armenia

 President Serzh Sargsyan today took part in a solemn meeting devoted to the 97th anniversary of RA Police Day.

The Armenian president congratulated the policemen on the occasion of their professional holiday. By presidential decrees, a number of policemen were awarded RA state decorations and some were bestowed highest ranks. During the solemn meeting, Serzh Sargsyan handed over the state decorations, congratulated the awardees and wished them further success.

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RA President Serzh Sargsyan’s remarks on RA Police Day

Honorable policemen,

As you remember, this year your professional holiday coincided with the most intensive phase of the events marking the Armenian Genocide Centennial, and for understandable reasons, first of all due to your overwork, we were not able to celebrate this holiday in the due manner.

Hence, today, I cordially congratulate you on the occasion of your professional holiday.

Your service is peculiar and difficult. Your work is really hard, but also gratifying and honorable. At the same time, one has to admit that as in many other countries, our society's attitude towards police performance is not unequivocal. Sometimes, we can witness demonstrations of negative attitudes towards the police. This stems from the peculiarity of your mission which must be confronted by your presence of mind, patience and high professional qualities.

Your service is hard for one more reason. The police system is under constant reform process which in its turn brings new problems, and indeed, there is a need for new solutions. Those reforms have yielded positive results and in fact, today we can witness them. I believe that tomorrow they will be more visible. I express my special thanks to all of you for your large-scale and crucial work, for your visible, but very often also invisible work, carried out at various stages of preparing and holding the events marking the Armenian Genocide Centennial. Long live you all. I am very grateful.

Honorable policemen,

I once again congratulate you on your professional holiday. I wish you happiness in your personal life and success in your responsible work, and I wish your families success, well-being and peace. I am sure that your devotion, adherence to principles and professionalism will not only continue to raise the reputation of the Police of the Republic of Armenia and the level of obedience to the law, but also will become important components of a democratic state and a free society.

We will talk about these issues in detail in the future. I plan to visit you again in autumn, but then will already have working discussions at which we will look into the status of the police reforms and the effectiveness of their future implementation.