Peace needs voters` protection - premier 

ArmInfo. In the previous period, we never had peace, but rather a postponement of war, but it is also important to document how and at what cost this postponement of war was achieved. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this during a Facebook live broadcast.

"The three-headed party of Kocharyan, Karapetyan, and Tsarukyan is  trying to convince everyone that we had peace until 2024-2025, as  well as until 2018. Of course, this is a cynical lie, if only  because, since independence and the ceasefire in 1994, we have  suffered casualties and injuries every year as a result of exchanges  of fire with Azerbaijan. Moreover, the death toll is in the hundreds,  and the number of wounded is significantly higher. "Perhaps their  idea of peace is that we have casualties every year, while ours is  the exact opposite: peace means the absence of casualties and  wounded; peace means the absence of any tension whatsoever," he said.

According to Pashinyan, in the previous period, it could be said that  exchanges of fire occurred daily, with sniper battles and mini-sniper  wars occurring regularly. Moreover, the Prime Minister pointed out,  Armenia paid for "postponing the war" with "the independence,  sovereignty, statehood of the Republic of Armenia, the well-being of  the citizens of the Republic of Armenia, and economic development."

"This means of payment was exhausted in 2016, when the four-day war  broke out and a completely different logic was proposed, dispelling  all notions about the Karabakh conflict. To those who try to dispute  this assertion, I refer to Serzh Sargsyan's already published and  well-known letter from August 2016," the Prime Minister said. As the  head of the Cabinet noted, his assertion that there was no peace in  the previous period, but peace has now been established, is supported  by the fact that 2025 marks the first calendar year in which Armenia  has had no casualties or injuries as a result of gunfire with  Azerbaijan. "In practice, we have had no casualties or injuries since  February 2024. That is, the last such incident was recorded in early  2024," he noted.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia emphasized that the  peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan was not signed, but  merely formalized, but the peace established between Armenia and  Azerbaijan already has de jure confirmation.

"The legal confirmation is the adoption of the regulations on joint  activities signed by the border delimitation commissions of the two  countries in 2024, which, after adoption, was ratified in both  countries in accordance with the relevant procedure, acquiring  supreme legal force. It is in this document that the Almaty  Declaration is enshrined as the fundamental principle of border  delimitation between the two countries. And this has the highest  legal significance in both countries. This means that Armenia and  Azerbaijan have mutually recognized, as a document of supreme legal  force, that independent Armenia is identical in territory to Soviet  Armenia, and independent Azerbaijan is identical in territory to  Soviet Azerbaijan. This is the foundation of peace, and it has  supreme legal force in both countries. "A deviation from this logic,  as the three-headed Kocharyan-Karapetyan-Tsarukyan party is pursuing,  clearly and unequivocally means war with all the ensuing  consequences," Nikol Pashinyan emphasized.

According to him, the current Armenian government has achieved peace,  not a postponement of war, at the cost of numerous victims and  losses.

"Peace has already been established de jure today, and the citizen of  the Republic of Armenia must stand up to defend his peace, because it  is his peace, the peace he created, because the government he elected  worked for this peace and achieved this result. The government  prioritized the establishment of peace, remaining true to the  people's message given in the 2021 snap parliamentary elections,  being accessible to the people, listening to the people's words, and  implementing them. And now the time has come, and that time is June  7, 2026, when the citizen of the Republic of Armenia must stand up to  defend his peace.  "Frankly speaking, I have no doubt that the  citizen of Armenia will stand up to defend his world," concluded  Nikol Pashinyan.