National Security Service of Armenia ( hy, Հայաստանի Ազգային Անվտանգության Ծառայություն, translit=Hayastani Azgayin Anvtangut’yan Tsarrayut’yun) is a state agency of Armenia, responsible for national security and intelligence and providing border troops, cryptographers, and the personal security to the Prime Minister of Armenia.

History

In late September 1991, the Soviet republic of Armenia declared its independence and therefore began the process of restructuring its Soviet-era security agencies, including the Committee for State Security (KGB) of the Armenian SSR. According to a law on the structure and composition of the government adopted on 4 December 1991, the KGB was renamed into the State Directorate of National Security, with Major General Husik Suren Harutyunyan becoming its first director, serving until February 1992. Between 1996 and 1999, the government went through the process of uniting the Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs into one department. Despite rumors that the NSS will be dismembered into several departments to follow a Russian format, the service runs with a KGB-style semi-militarized structure which remains unchanged since its establishment. On 17 December 2002, President Robert Kocharyan restructured the National Security Ministry into the NSS.

Operations

It is known to have participated in both the

2016 Yerevan hostage crisis On 17 July 2016, a group of armed men calling themselves the ''Daredevils of Sasun'' (; the name is taken from an epic poem) stormed a police station in Yerevan, Armenia and took nine hostages. They demanded the release of opposition leader Jira ...

and the 2018 anti-corruption crackdown. During the

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, the surrounding territories. It was a major escalation of ...

, 46 servicemen of the NSS Border Troops were killed, with 191 others wounded, and 2 declared missing. During the protests following the 2020 Karabkah ceasefire agreement, the NSS foiled an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, uncovering the illegal acquisition and storage of weapons and explosives by a group of people led by former NSS operative and director Artur Vanetsyan.

Structure

The NSS maintains senior organs as well as a central administration and regional directorates: * Central Administration * Regional Authorities * State Protection Service * NSS Border Guard The

Armenian Border Guard The Armenian Border Guard ( hy, Հայաստանի Սահմանային պահպանություն) is the branch of the National Security Service (Armenia), National Security Service of Armenia that is responsible for monitoring and guarding Armen ...

has, since 2004, been under the jurisdiction of the NSS after remaining under the control of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

for 12 years.

NSS Union

In April 2021, group of former senior NSS officials formed an organization called the Union of NSS Reserve Officers. The union includes, in particular, ex-director of the NSS Artur Vanetsyan, former commander of the border troops Armen Abrahamyan, former Deputy Head of the NSS Grigory Harutyunyan, and former Acting Director of the NSS Mikael Hambardzumyan. The task of the union is to confront the challenges and threats to security, collect facts of the subversive activities of some structures, and use the experience of officers to solve the country's security problems. Although initially created as an apolitical structure, it supported the army officials who signed a statement drafted by

General Staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military un ...

calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Directors

*Major General Usik Harutyunyan (1991–1992) *Major General Valery Poghosyan (1992–1993) *Major General Eduard Simonyants (1993–1994) *David Shahnazaryan (1994–1995) * Serzh Sargsyan (1996–1999) *Lieutenant General Carlos Petrosyan (1999–2004) *Colonel General Gorik Hakobyan (2004–2016) *Major General

Georgi Kutoyan Georgi Kutoyan ( hy, Գեորգի Կուտոյան; 30 September 1981 – 17 January 2020) was an Armenian lawyer and director of the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia between 2016 and 2018. Biography Education From 1998 to 2000 he ...

(2016–2018) *Major General Arthur Vanetsyan (2018–2019) *Colonel Eduard Martirosyan (2019–2020) *Colonel Argishti Kyaramyan (June 2020–October 2020) *Colonel Armen Abazyan (November 2020- )

References