Armenia`s political forces against disbandment of Culture Ministry 

ArmInfo.The Democratic  Party of Armenia fully supports the demands of the staff of the  Ministry of Culture, opposing the disbandment of the ministry.

"On the contrary, every effort must be made to ensure that it works  more efficiently, representing the centuries-old Armenian culture ",  the statement of the Democratic Party reads. In a statement, party  representatives called on the intellectuals to express their position  on this issue. " We believe that the Armenian government should not  rush to the decision and should organize public discussions. The  Ministry of Culture in Armenia should be preserved and it should work  with a double force, "the statement reads.

In turn, the Deputy Chairman of the RPA, the former Minister of  Education and Science Armen Ashotyan, referring to the possibility of  the merge of Ministry of Culture with the Ministry of Education and  Science, wrote on his Facebook page: "The Ministry of Education and  Science is a big ministry that works hard day and night to cope with  their affairs. This department can not do more and more work. The  Ministry of Culture exists in all those countries, for which the  issue of national identity is important, which have a huge cultural  heritage or for which history and culture are of political  importance. In Greece, Italy or Serbia, no one would ever think to  close the Ministry of Culture. This year we received a huge blow at  UNESCO, when the Azerbaijanis, because of our inaction managed to  register their Kochari-like dance, while last year we, at the cost of  great efforts, registered Kochari into the list of intangible  cultural heritage of the Armenian people. The most dangerous moment  in this story is that the Azerbaijanis recorded this dance as a  regional dance of Nakhichevan, "Ashotyan wondered.

Referring to the disbandment of the Ministry of Diaspora, Ashotyan  noted that once its establishment pursued two main goals, firstly,  the Foreign Ministry could not cope with the whole spectrum of work  with Diaspora, secondly, it was an important message in foreign  policy. "It is no coincidence that after us Azerbaijan also conducts  institutional work in this direction. Obviously, our Foreign Ministry  will not be able to fully resolve all issues related to the Diaspora  in the future. Optimization of the public administration system  should not be an end in itself. Against the background of the huge  questionable expenses of our today's authorities, this social blow,  which is inflicted on thousands of people, has nothing to do with the  stated goals, " Ashotyan concluded.  To note, employees of the  disbanded ministries of Culture and Diaspora today held a protest  action, demanding that the government not liquidate these  departments. Meanwhile, the Armenian government plans to liquidate  the Ministry of Culture, and one part of its departments to merge  with the Ministry of Education and Science, the other - with the City  Planning Committee. It is not known yet which agency will perform the  functions of Diaspora Ministry, but as the other day acting Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted, in the functions of almost all  Armenian ministries there is a component of working with the  Diaspora. To note, several months earlier one of Pashinyan's advisers  declared the government's intention to reduce about 110 thousand  public sector employees, against the background that in general about  160 thousand employees work in the state agencies.  To recall, as a  result of reforming the structure of the Government in Armenia,  instead of 17 ministries, it is planned to leave 12.