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At April 10 sitting, the National Assembly debated the report on the procedure of the implementation of the RA Government programme (2021-2026) for 2023 and its results.

In his main speech the RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan first spoke about the perceptions and of our society on historical Armenia and real Armenia and its dangers. “The Government and personally me have come to conviction that the historical Armenia and the real Armenia are not only incompatible, but are often antipodes to each other and they even create the most serious threats to each other. The Government and me, being for the long time the bearer of the psychology and tradition of the historical Armenia, only in 2022 recorded that the key factor of ensuring the security of the Republic of Armenia is despised. It has happened from the first years of the establishment of our statehood, and that factor are considered to be the internationally recognized border of the Republic of Armenia, and the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia. Only after September 2022 war I was undoubtedly and unequivocally convinced that the recording of the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia can become an additional and decisive factor in ensuring the short-term, mid-term and long-term security of our country. From that moment, a factual, political and psychological process started, which can be called demarcation process between the real Armenia and the historical Armenia. The delimitation and demarcation process between the real Armenia and historical Armenia does not go on more easily than the demarcation process between the Republic of Armenia and Republic of Azerbaijan. If I say sincerely, the demarcation process between the real Armenia and the historical Armenia goes on much more painful also because the demarcation takes place inside each of us and brings forth unexpected layers and nuances. Accordingly, the historical Armenia does not recognize the territorial integrity of the real Armenia, because the territorial integrity of the real Armenia is a restricting factor for the historical Armenia and does not give an opportunity to be displayed. In this respect, willingly or unwillingly, the historical Armenia sounds with a number of countries that have ambitions towards the sovereignty. Independence, territories of the real Armenia, because the territorial integrity of the real Armenia is a factor restricting the internationally recognized border in the same way for the appetite of those countries. The historical Armenia, by the way, is of key importance for our relations with a number of countries. It is a lasting guarantee of our animosity with a group of countries and is a guarantee that those countries will have a reason and explanation of pursuing aggressive policy against us. The historical Armenia is also a guarantee that we won’t have ability and knowledge of living without side help, and therefore, we’ll need a permanent sponsor, senior friend. This is also a guarantee that we won’t have a real state, a real independence, because our vision of Armenia will always lead us to the trap of the genocide, and appearing there, we’ll have need of a savior and a sponsor, without which we cannot survive, we cannot exist, and the fear of the genocide will keep us in the status of outpost, and the outpost has no need for border, sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity: It will need only a sponsor,” the RA Prime Minister said.

Speaking about challenges and the ways of overcoming them, Nikol Pashinyan added: “As RA Prime Minister, I consider myself obliged to record and voice out loud that we should concentrate on serving the interests of the real Armenia, moreover recording the vital impossibility of ever returning to the workstyle and way of thinking of Armenia in the future. Otherwise, we will not even have a chance of addressing the external challenges, because we will have lasting source generating external threats inside us, in our daily reality without deeply and completely understanding and appreciating this fact.”

In the context of the abovementioned issue the RA Prime Minister sounded a question – and which is the real Armenia and recorded: “The real Armenia is the one that has an internationally recognized territory and internationally recognized borders, and with the conscience of this fact a self-conscience of a full and respected member of the international community. This means certain behaviour, certain etiquette and certain work procedure, which corresponds to the internationally accepted and recognized standards.” According to the Prime Minister, the real Armenia is the country with 29.743 km² internationally recognized territory – the Republic of Armenia.

“The time has come that we recognize ourselves the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia. In this context, the following question - how does the concept of the real Armenia guarantees the security of the Republic of Armenia? – is of special importance. I will insist that in the modern world, if there exist guarantees, they are negative guarantees, that is with some guarantees, somewhat provide only the negative expectations. Guarantees of the implementation of positive expectations, simply, do not exist, and therefore, in similar conditions the management and neutralization of the negative guarantees is considered to be the consistent work in this direction, which can become a positive guarantee. There is simply no other way. The neutralization of negative guarantees is only possible based on legitimate steps, legitimate expectations, legitimate arguments and anti-arguments, moreover, in case of functioning on the legitimate territory,” the RA Prime Minister documented.

Nikol Pashinyan touched upon in detail the demarcation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, its challenges, the problems of the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh issue and underscored: “My conclusion is that the Nagorno Karabakh issue has not existed after the OSCE Lisbon Summit of 1996. The issue of the Republic of Armenia has existed in a sense that the international architecture predetermining de jure the content of the Nagorno Karabakh issue has been ready and unchangeable with a record that Nagorno Karabakh cannot but be in Azerbaijan. Giving indefinite and vain hopes for avoiding this record, some states used the Nagorno Karabakh issue for putting on a tie to the Republic of Armenia and to constrain its actions as an independent state. The negotiation opportunities which existed from 2016, were not about solving the Nagorno Karabakh issue, but shortening the tie put on to the Republic of Armenia in order simply to exclude the efforts of being independent and sovereign state.”

The RA Prime Minister spoke in detail about the 44-day war, the actions following it, the dangers threatening the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Armenia and in this context the steps taken by the authorities, referred to the implemented foreign policy, what happened in Nagorno Karabakh, the support programmes to our compatriots displaced from Nagorno Karabakh, the vision of the establishment peace in the region, the cooperation with the US and the EU, the Armenia-Russia inter-state relations, as well as the interaction with the countries of the region and a number of other problems.