We Will Not Surrender Our Statehood, Sovereignty, and Independence to Anyone: Prime Minister

In a statement during the 6th congress of the Civil Contract party, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that the ruling power in Armenia destroyed the legal foundations for the declaration of independence of Artsakh by adopting the Madrid Principles as a basis for negotiations in 2007.

“When we came to power and faced this situation, we tried our best to restore the foundations of Armenia’s statehood. We documented that from 1990 until 2018, Armenia systematically rejected and undermined the foundations of the state. Later, we realized that even with all our efforts, we were no longer capable of restoration,” he said.

Pashinyan stated that the position of the Civil Contract party was that the implementation of any plan for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is only possible with the restoration of its full negotiating party status, without which no resolution can be considered de jure accepted.

“Since being elected Prime Minister, my primary efforts have focused on restoring the status of the negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh. However, it became clear that all these issues are now outside the control of the Republic of Armenia, as Armenia has lost all control over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue after nearly 30 years of negotiations. Armenia can no longer decide, and the only thing it can do is obediently execute decisions that are made elsewhere,” the Prime Minister declared.

He added that they have not complied with these decisions. “We acted this way because we understood that by doing so we would lose our sovereignty and statehood. We realized that, in fact, the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is not the entire story, and the remainder of the history concerns Armenia, its independence, sovereignty, and statehood. Today, we must clearly and firmly state that under no circumstances will we surrender our statehood, our sovereignty, our sovereignty, and our independence to anyone, and we are a party that must defend independence, sovereignty, and statehood,” Pashinyan emphasized.