My task is to hand Armenia over to young people with its internationally recognised territory and open borders, says prime minister at MaskOFF panel discussion
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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan took part in the Restart Foundation’s MaskOFF panel discussion.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Pashinyan welcomed the participants and thanked them for the invitation. He said that, in his view, the greatest task he needed to accomplish for young people was the signing and ratification of the peace agreement.
“The Republic of Armenia with its internationally recognised territory and open borders — figuratively speaking, that is the condition in which I must hand the country over to young people. In my view, this must be the starting point for resolving the fundamental issues. That, together with the subsequent actions it entails, will determine the implementation of the agenda you have outlined. Particularly now, considering that we are deepening our relations with the European Union, I hope that by 2029 we will already have secured a decision on visa liberalisation with the EU, and the Academic City project will have become irreversible. A peaceful country with open borders. Do you know what I think this means? It means that, in these circumstances, young people face no restrictions on fulfilling any ambition, achieving any goal or implementing any project.”
Continuing, the prime minister stressed:
“Of course, economic stability and energy independence are also very important components in completing the picture I have described, and I am now focused on addressing these issues. First, of course, comes peace and its institutionalisation. How confident am I that we will succeed in resolving this issue? As the saying goes, no one can give a 100% guarantee. But I believe resolving it is realistic, though quite difficult. Among those difficulties, a significant one is the need for a roadmap, political discourse and an ideology that the public in general, and young people in particular, will find convincing. Therefore, engaging with young people is also very significant and important from this perspective and for resolving this issue.”
Concluding his remarks, Pashinyan said:
“Education is the most important factor in seeing and assessing reality, finding solutions and seeing them through. This is why the government has declared education the strategy of strategies. Wherever we find that we cannot resolve an issue at any level — individual, state or group — we must return to our education and work on it, again at the individual, group, public and state levels. This is, broadly, our vision of the future and the work ahead.
“As I said, it is also very important that we hand the state, the Republic of Armenia, over to the next generation as a peaceful, secure, developing and prosperous country — that is a somewhat lengthy process — with delimited and demarcated borders, and open borders. This is where the vision of the state’s enduring existence arises: the process of passing it down from generation to generation must continue forever. And Armenia, as a state, must exist forever. This is the greatest agenda that I believe we must all work to advance.”
Pashinyan then answered numerous questions from young participants concerning Armenia’s foreign and domestic policy, establishing peace with Azerbaijan, the border delimitation process, steps towards signing and ratifying the peace agreement, and the normalisation of Armenia–Türkiye relations and expectations for the near future.
During the question-and-answer session, the prime minister also addressed relations with the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), Armenia–EU cooperation and its further development, measures towards visa liberalisation, the ideology of Real Armenia and its principles, government programmes promoting balanced regional development and other topics.