Any attempt to continue that movement is destructive: the Prime Minister

Building the state is an absolute priority for us, stated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the National Assembly.

“The idea of Armenia’s independence was generated not for the sake of independence and statehood, but for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue; in other words, we created an independent state not for a better life but for the issue of Karabakh,” he said.

According to Pashinyan, for about 30 years, a model of the state has been developed that has primarily been dedicated to the resolution of the Karabakh issue, the Karabakh movement, and the logic of sacrificing everything for it.

“I am not saying this as criticism but as a fact, because we all have reconciled with that model and objective; I myself reconciled with that model until the moment when, as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, I gradually began to understand, step by step, that if for us, independence and statehood are means to our envisioned solution to the Karabakh issue, for a number of external actors, the Karabakh issue is a tool to prevent our independence, statehood, development, and prosperity, and ultimately to bring an end to our statehood,” he noted.

The Prime Minister stated that this objective began in 2018, entered its concluding phase in September 2022, and peaked in May 2021, with these goals having implications within Armenia.

“They believe that the Karabakh issue is important, not independence and statehood,” Pashinyan declared, emphasizing that any attempt to continue the Karabakh movement is destructive.

“It has been and will be a tool to prevent the statehood, independence, and sovereignty of Armenia; unfortunately, we realized this very late, while the opposition claims that the statehood of Armenia has had and still has one objective and meaning – the Karabakh movement, the Karabakh issue,” the Prime Minister stated.