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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 28, ARMENPRESS. The first Global Armenian Summit aims to become a platform and a meeting place for people who want and are ready to make the state interest of the Republic of Armenia a pan-Armenian agenda and have their contribution to the promotion of that interest, support the institutional accomplishment and strategic development of the statehood, making it a modern state able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, ARMENPRESS reports, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said during the first Global Armenian Summit that has started in Yerevan, welcoming the holding of the first Global Armenian Summit and all its participants.
"In the context of the Armenia-Diaspora dialogue, this meeting is truly expected and relevant, especially these days, when it is obvious to everyone that Armenia-Diaspora relations are undergoing profound substantive, social-psychological, and organizational changes, regardless of our will. These changes are happening not because someone wants it, but because global processes are forcing such changes. These changes have nothing to do with the revolution that took place in Armenia in 2018, nor the tragedy of the 44-day war in 2020. Both the revolution and the war were a stimulus for us to record the obvious. And the obvious thing is that time has an inevitable effect on the nature and content of the Armenian Diaspora. What does Diaspora-Armenian mean in an era when a person can spend 7 days of the week in six different parts of the world? What does it mean to be a Diaspora Armenian in a situation where you can send and receive letters, photos and videos from anywhere in the world within seconds, establish direct contact with anyone 24 hours a day? What does community life mean in a situation where Armenian literature, the Armenian press, books are available through the Internet anytime and anywhere, and any Armenian can talk to any other Armenian at any time, generate, share, spread any idea, given that Armenia is on the list of the world's leading countries in terms of internet access and freedom. These are questions that are extremely important for all of us to answer," the Prime Minister emphasized.
According to the Prime Minister, the answers to these questions will change a lot in the relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Diaspora.
"We think this with the conviction that Armenians around the world are a great potential and a country with such a global resource, such as Armenia, should not have the problems it has. And if it has, it means that we have done and do a lot wrong not only in Armenia, but also in Armenia-Diaspora relations," stressed the Prime Minister.
The biggest mistake, according to the Prime Minister, is that the Armenia-Diaspora conversation usually starts, proceeds and ends with truths known to everyone or, as it is customary to say, universally approved truths.
"This is certainly not bad, this is even good, but it is not perfect in the sense that it does not broaden our understanding of ourselves and the world. This, in turn, does not allow us to perceive and record the changes taking place in the world at a sufficient speed, that is, grasp the opportunities and manage the challenges.
The first Global Armenian Summit is taking place in the conditions when many ideas and dreams about the world, the region, even ourselves have been shaken, sometimes even collapsed. Our proposal and idea is not to remain under those ruins, but to try to find new opportunities, to try to make the Republic of Armenia a platform for the formation and development of new ideas, new dreams, new approaches, with an independent, sovereign, safe, free, developed and democratic Armenia as the core, because any Armenian, anywhere in the globalizing world, can have anything: welfare, job, money, family, and there is only one exception, and that one thing is the Republic of Armenia, the pride and happiness of being a citizen of which is borne by the majority of people present in this hall”, the Prime Minister concluded.