The Defense Minster abolished in her own ministry the obligatory service for young men in the Armed Forces. She already signed an order on this matter being at the meeting with journalists. This was one of her promises that she made before the public one year ago. The order of the Minister will be sent to the government.

"We promised that starting form the 2017 we will not recruit to the Armed Forces young people. The reason simple is: the Army need not people forced to serve military service against its own will. The military service in Georgia very prestigious must be and we need not force anybody for service. Here a very high demand is for serving in Georgian Army. Nobody needs a compulsion to become a soldier of its own country. Here are serving young people who decided to commit its life to the military service in Georgian Army, here in own state and outside the borders in international missions. They were serving everywhere on demand of the homeland. Many talks were as if the recruits were in hard conditions having a burden of almost slavery work. Such talks groundless are. But we will not abuse the Armed Forces, and namely because of this I took a decision to make every effort to abolish the compulsory military service form the 2017.

We were trying to abolish this service, based on the legislative grounds, but this appears to be impossible. However, we find another solution: I can take this decision in my own capacity of the Defense Minister unilaterally. Now at your presence I am signing the document and it will be in force starting from today.

Before, things were different, we were suggesting to the government how many people we need for recruitment in our Forces, afterwards we were choosing some number of people for service in the Defense Ministry. I am declaring that now we will not recruit anymore officially under the order of the minister. Accordingly, any minister after me, who will decide to return recruits to the Army, has to abolish this order."