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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has issued a statement on August 23 on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of Armenia.
Below is the statement released by his office.
"Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
On August 23, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) adopted the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, which marked the beginning of the process of establishing our independent statehood, the Republic of Armenia.
The Declaration essentially reflected the collective mood of the political and intellectual elite in Armenia at the time of its adoption. It bore the stamp of the Karabakh movement, which had begun just two years earlier and was reaching its peak, and it predetermined the key features of the newly formed independent Republic of Armenia.
The ideological provisions of the Declaration were contradictory. They reflected the model of collective patriotism that had been instilled in us by the Soviet Union drop by drop, yet consistently, since the 1950s, in the context of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. That model of patriotism, shaped by the Soviet Union for Armenians, expressed the southwestern direction of the USSR’s ambitions, a state that had won World War II and entered into conflict with the North Atlantic Alliance. At the same time, this model was designed to ensure the export of patriotic perceptions from the Armenian SSR outward, preventing their full local expression.
This ideology was instilled for decades through books, films, plays, and theater performances. It shaped our socio-psychology, which eventually led to the Karabakh movement. We were all bearers of that socio-psychology. In the 1990s, it was passed on to the generations raised in the Republic of Armenia. Its deep, subconscious goal was the strategic impossibility of the existence of an independent Armenian state.
Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
A complete and comprehensive analysis of the information and reality available to me as Prime Minister has brought me to the unshakable conviction that we should not continue the Karabakh movement, as it means abolishing the independence of the Republic of Armenia.
Today, I also want to answer a question that is perhaps the most important for understanding the history of the last seven years: Why did the Republic of Armenia, our Government, and I personally not make concessions before September 2020, which was the only theoretical opportunity to avoid the 44-day war.
The key reason is this: as a result of those concessions, all the threats and dependencies we faced would have increased disproportionately leading to the loss of Armenia's independence and statehood. Instead, we adopted a strategy to preserve Armenia’s independence and make that independence a reality. The expression of that strategy is the ideology of the “Real Armenia,” which has made peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan possible, has made real dialogue with Turkey possible, which has given us an opportunity to deepen our relations with Georgia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and has allowed us to become a real and interesting partner for the world.
Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
Our state, the Republic of Armenia, with its internationally recognized sovereign territory of 29,743 square kilometers is the most important value we have and have had for more than 500 years."
The Prime Minister called for being guided by Armenia’s interests and emphasized that these interests must be the foundation and axis of the patriotism.
"We are following this path, and having gone through hellish trials, we have reached a seemingly incredible milestone: The Republic of Armenia is today more independent than ever, more sovereign than ever, more state than ever, more prosperous than ever, and more promising than ever because it is peaceful.
Peace has been established, and it must become a subject of daily care and concern, it must become institutional. August 2025 has become the beginning of a peaceful and prosperous life for the Republic of Armenia.
I congratulate all of us on this occasion.
Glory to the martyrs, and long live the Republic of Armenia.''