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A part of the Armenian society has expressed concerns regarding the possible adoption of the decision allowing the Russian citizens to pay a visit to Armenia on internal passports. The participants of the social network debates expressed fears that everyone could come Armenia without any restrictions.

Namely politician Styopa Safaryan noted: "So the Russian citizens, including the Azerbaijani people of Russia, can visit Armenia without a passport by just presenting a piece of paper, and as the PM mentioned, this will promote the tourism in Armenia, but it is only one side of this matter."

Notably RA Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan has discussed this matter during the meeting with  the Co-chair of Armenian-Russian Interparliamentary Commission Nikolay Ryzhkov. As the official statement of the government reads PM Karen Karapetyan expressed hopes that soon a decision will be made allowing the Russian citizens to pay a visit to Armenia on internal passports which, in its turn, will promote the tourism in Armenia.

According to various Russian sources a small sector of the Russian population have a foreign passport.

Namely in 2014 "Russian Magazine" reported the data released by a sociological survey according to which only 28 percent of Russians have foreign passports. The same source indicates that namely entrepreneurs (66 percent) and directors (49 percent) and experts (48 percent) have a foreign passport.

Gagik Yeganyan, Chief of State Migration Service of the RA Government, has also worked on the decision and told the reporter of panorama.am that it will greatly ease the lives of the people.

In his words few people in Russian have a foreign passport which prevents them from travelling abroad.

"The process of issuing such a passport might be difficult. And that decision to be made by the Armenian government will greatly ease their lives, as many people will be willing to visit Armenia. There might even be Armenians who have faced obstacles when visiting Armenia and this decision with make the things easier," Yeganyan noted.

According to him the concerns expressed by a part of society are groundless. "They are human beings who want to visit our country, should we forbid them?" Yeganyan noted.

He also mentioned that in order to take such a decision an agreement is to be reached on both sides, namely the MFA of the Russian Federation is to give its agreement and the RA MFA is working on that matter.