‘Today we are more sovereign and independent than ever before,’ Pashinyan’s address

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in his May 28 Republic Day address, said that today the Armenian nation is "more sovereign, more independent" than ever before.

He said that the Armenian people no longer need to seek their homeland, because that dream has already been realized in the form of Republic of Armenia. 

“Today we celebrate Republic Day, which is associated with a true turning point of our thousand-year history, the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia,” Pashinyan said during a ceremony at Sardarapat Memorial. “The First Republic, materialized by the Battle of Sardarapat, didn’t have a long life. It lasted only for two years and several months. But the First Republic transformed us from a nation deprived of statehood for over four and a half centuries into a nation with statecraft, and for the first time in our history a state system was outlined, a republic, where the power belongs to the people of Armenia. And the people decide through elections who and how shall govern the state,” Pashinyan said.

Although the First Republic “updated” the perception of statehood, it did not strengthen it, it sowed democracy and liberty but did not take root because it didn’t have the time to do so. 

He said that during the Soviet years the First Republic was targeted as “an evil” and became “subject to mockery.”

“By doing so the empire was pursuing a goal of destroying the seeds of the independent state that the First Republic could had renewed in our consciousness. In 1991, when Armenia regained independence, it seemed that the seventy-year propaganda hadn’t left a deep mark in us and that our fears of being independent and act on our own had been overcome. But now, a retrospective analysis of the history of the third Republic’s history makes it evident that disdain for statehood and our fears of sovereignty and independence aren’t fully surmounted.  

We continue to often perceive the history and the world through the formulas that the USSR imperial propaganda had continually instilled in us. This is the reason, and I am sure that we must first of all overcome this in order to ensure the lastingness of our state and our identity. As a result of which we will be able to note and accept several key realities,” Pashinyan said.

He described the “primary reality” as “our state is our identity.”

“Our state is our identity, because all characteristics that define our identity have been acquired, developed and established through statehood, that is, in conditions of the statehood’s existence,” he said.

“The Republic of Armenia, with an internationally recognized territory comprising 29 thousand 743 square kilometers territory, is the expression of the Armenian people’s achievements, not losses,” he said, describing this as “reality number two.”

“Our people no longer need to search for their homeland, there is no need to dream of a homeland, because our dreams are realized, our homeland is found, in the form of the Republic of Armenia, in the form of the state. Having passed through cruel trials since 2020, at the cost of our martyrs’ lives we have gained a historic opportunity to develop our sovereignty, realize and make our statehood eternal. Today we are more of a state than ever before, we are more sovereign than ever before, more independent than ever before,” Pashinyan said.

Describing the other reality, Pashinyan said the history of the past four and a half centuries, historic Armenia are sending a message to the Armenian nation, saying “do not repeat that history, don’t take my path, don’t repeat me.”

Pashinyan said his government has understood this message and is heeding it. The fourth reality, according to Pashinyan, is that “the security guaranteed by foreign forces is deceptive.” 

“We ourselves are the guarantors of our own security. And the means for guaranteeing that security are first of all political and diplomatic tools, normalization of relations with direct neighbors, establishing peace with neighbors…”

Pashinyan also highlighted his administration’s balanced and balancing foreign policy.