Pashinyan: International legitimacy key to Armenia’s security, global arms markets now open
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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said international legitimacy is a key component of Armenia’s external security, arguing that basing the country’s foreign and security policies on internationally recognized political and legal principles has helped remove previous obstacles to Armenia’s access to international arms markets.
“The foreign policy positions and security-related positions of the Republic of Armenia must be based on an internationally recognized legitimate framework,” Pashinyan said at the Comprehensive Security & Resilience 2026 international conference.
The Comprehensive Security & Resilience Project is a flagship initiative of the Yerevan-based think tank Women & Global Security Architecture (WGSA), launched in 2024 to reinforce Armenia’s evolving security landscape through inclusive, expert-driven international dialogue.
“This is why we speak about the 29,743-square-kilometer sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. For a long time, we have not heard assessments from various actors of the international community regarding the development of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia or the acquisition of armaments; the reason for this is legitimacy, because today we are acting on the basis of political and legal positions, the core of which is the following: the Armenian army is developing to defend the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. Going 1 millimeter outside this logic means that the Republic of Armenia will face major difficulties in developing its Armed Forces and will become vulnerable to possible actions by others,” Pashinyan said.
The Prime Minister added that as of August 2022, no countries were selling weapons to Armenia.
“There were even situations when we had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars, but they did not give us the weapons we had purchased. When we tried to choose another place, all arms markets were closed to us for two reasons: first, they said that you are a member of the CSTO, and when selling weapons, we also sell algorithms and see that you may circulate those algorithms elsewhere. Second, they told us: not only are we not convinced that you will not use the weapons we provide outside the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia, but, on the contrary, we are convinced that you will use them outside the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia,” the Prime Minister noted.
The situation, Pashinyan continued, was resolved in October 2022 in Prague, when Armenia and Azerbaijan recognized each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty on the basis of the Alma-Ata Declaration.
“Following that agreement, today all arms markets in the world are open to the Republic of Armenia. We saw the result of this on May 28, 2026. None of our neighbors turned the scenes from that military parade into an international issue,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan emphasized.