Pashinyan: If we can live without external support, it will give us a  chance to be a prosperous state

ArmInfo.  In the upcoming elections, the people must decide whether or not they will strive to preserve and develop Armenia's independence, strengthen the state, sovereignty, and peace. RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made this statement  on May 21 at a meeting with voters in Geghanist, Ararat  region.

"What do we need for independence? We need peace and a state, because  if we can live in our region without external support, it will give  us a chance to be peaceful, prosperous, and truly become a state.   Imagine that you simply can't live at peace with your neighbors. In  that case, you will constantly need someone's help, which means you  will lose your tranquility, your peace of mind, and you will be  unable to live in your own environment. So what have we learned? We  have realized that if we want to be a state, we must learn to live in  our own environment without external assistance. External  interference will not allow us to live peacefully," the head of the  Armenian government declared.

He added that previously, in order to negotiate with Azerbaijan and  Turkey, messages were sent through third countries, and responses  also arrived through third countries. Moreover, these countries were  not always the same. "However, we realized one thing:  neither the  messages we sent nor the responses we received reached us properly.  Moreover, they did not always do this with malicious intent, rather  there are nuances, there is a regional mentality that people did not  understand," Pashinyan said, noting that, faced with this phenomenon,  the need for direct dialogue with Azerbaijan and Turkey arose.

Speaking about the negotiations to resolve the Karabakh issue,  Pashinyan noted that throughout the process, the mediators always  proposed scenarios  in which a solution was simply impossible; texts  were even drafted that allowed for 65 different interpretations. "Our  former political elite still doesn't understand this. Today, when I  listen to what Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan, and others say, I'm  horrified to note that these people don't even understand what  they're talking about or what they're dealing with. And I'm glad we  had the political will, otherwise we wouldn't have reached this  point. And this point is that we not only have a state today, but the  question of whether we will have a state in the coming decades and  centuries is a question that we must resolve ourselves. We have  walked this path and taken the wheel of our own destiny. This means  that we have truly become a state, that we can see the path ahead,  assess the situation, and secure our future course," he noted.

Pashinyan emphasized that to ensure the aforementioned goals, it's  crucial to stand up for peace and the state in the upcoming  elections. "I urge you to come to the polling station on June 7,  2026, and stand up for peace," Pashinyan concluded.