Armenian citizenship can be restored at least five years after renunciation, Interior Minister Arpine Sargsyan said on Public Television.
She stressed that Armenian citizenship cannot be regarded as just another transaction, where someone decides one day to acquire it and the next day to renounce it, Sputnik Armenia reported.
“Under current legislation, when we grant a person Armenian citizenship, they can apply the very next day to terminate their Armenian citizenship. Of course, this suggests apparent motives to resolve various issues in different countries through circuitous means, or at least raises suspicions on our part,” Sargsyan continued.
According to the minister, acquiring Armenian citizenship is not an ordinary service provided to a citizen, as it should also be assessed from an ideological perspective.
She also addressed increases in state fees for renouncing and acquiring citizenship.
“The fee will be 250,000 drams for granting citizenship and 1.5 million drams for terminating it. We should remember what benefits a person receives when we grant Armenian citizenship: free education, health insurance, various investments. This is not compensation for the money the state spends on a citizen, but rather an approach we are ensuring so that the process of parting with each other is painful for both sides,” Sargsyan continued.
The interior minister stressed that losing Armenian citizenship is not merely a procedure involving the loss of a passport, but concerns the severing of ties between the state and the citizen. Sargsyan also outlined another planned change: a presidential decree granting citizenship will take effect from the moment the citizen takes the oath.
“We very often have cases where the president grants citizenship upon my recommendation, but people do not come to receive their passport or obtain the text of the oath. Ultimately, this is not merely an administrative process, because by taking the oath you attest that you are a citizen of Armenia,” the minister explained.
