Vehicle registration plates of Armenia

Vehicle registration plates of Armenia have black characters on a rectangular white background. They are composed of two or three numbers, two letters (smaller than the digits) in the middle, and two (or three) other numbers. At the left side is located the international code "" with an oval car plaque and, sometimes, the national flag.
Starting from 6 August 2014 a new design of license plates was implemented. The license plates have a national flag on the left side, a security hologram and a machinery readable Data Matrix Code.
Overview.
Formerly, Armenia used to have license plates issued as part of the Soviet Union system. The republic had Cyrillic codes АД and АР.
Starting from 1996, after the independence of Armenia (due to the collapse of the Soviet Union), the system for the license plates was created. However, motorcycles and trailers were licensed under the former soviet format with the code АР. In 2010, finally, motorcycles and trailers started receiving Armenian format.
Style.
From the beginning of the issuance of license plates, Armenian plates had the same style as Russia. Same fonts, and same differing font size for letters and digits were used. On the lower left hand side, the code AM was printed. In 2014, the style changed to the one used in Germany. The country's flag was added above AM on the top left hand side. The fonts were changed to FE-Schrift, and the letters and digits now have the same font size. In addition, a silver identifier band has been added on the right side of the flag and code.
Letters.
Currently the following 26 letters are used: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Օ, P, Q, R, Տ, T, Ս, V, W, X, Y, Z. The letters used on license plates have been added over a period of time. The following is the timeline.
The standard format for Armenian plates were either NN LL NNN or NNN LL NN, where N is a number and L being a letter.
The NN LL NNN format is meant for private vehicles while the other format is used for government-owned vehicles (such as the police cars). A two-row variation is provided with the first group of numbers and the letter group on the top row, and the remaining numbers on the second. The two-number group is supposedly the regional code.
Production of license plates in the mid-2000s was interrupted due to equipment failure.
Special combinations.
Public vehicles have the format ### LL ##, where the first three digits are assigned in an increasing order, and the two letters and the last two digits are predefined. The following are the special combinations used on public vehicles.
Special plates.
Military plates don't use Latin letters at all. Ministry of Defense plates have a black background and a format of ՊՆ NNNN L. The ՊՆ stands for , , the Ministry of Defense, while the last letter categorizes the vehicle, where a Մ means a passenger vehicle, and a Տ standing for transport vehicles.
Artsakh.
Armenian registration plates with region codes 22 and 90 are used in Artsakh (for example, "(AM) 90 SO 123").