VIDEO. I am the Prime Minister of a country whose highest peak is Mount Aragats. Pashinyan

During a question-and-answer session with the government in the National Assembly, Gegham Manukyan, a member of the ‘Armenia’ faction, reminded Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of several quatrains he had written regarding homeland. “I want to remind you of the thought you articulated in 2020, ‘Armenia is my home, the people are my family,’ as well as the following quatrain:

On the slopes of Tigran's city, a horizon sways endlessly
Centuries later, we are here again,
We stand against the distant reproach.

When you were reading this poem in Stepanakert, on September 27, at that rally, did you imagine that from the slopes of Tigran's city, that was your homeland, or were you thinking that a time would come when you would oppose homeland and state?” the lawmaker asked.

In response, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that all those lines have not lost their relevance. “The homeland is in no way opposed to the state. When we try to oppose the homeland to the state, we end up with neither a homeland nor a state. We have a homeland when we understand that the homeland is the state. So, Armenia is my home, and the people are my family,” Pashinyan declared.

Manukyan responded by saying that the home is maintained fiercely so that not even 1 cm is lost and that no police batons are raised against family members. “I don’t want to offend your homeroom teacher or your Armenian language teacher, but if you had learned Shiraz's poem, ‘Which is the homeland, our homeland?’ well in school, you wouldn’t oppose the homeland and the state, nor would you oppose Ararat with Aragats,” Manukyan pointed out.

Pashinyan retorted that he is the Prime Minister of a country whose highest peak is Mount Aragats.