Pashinyan criticises Armenia's Declaration of Independence

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticised the country’s Declaration of Independence on the 33rd anniversary of its adoption.

The message of the Prime Minister notes that the adoption of the declaration was a turning point, which laid the foundation of the current Armenian statehood. It was adopted at the peak of the "Garabagh movement", in the conditions of economic, political and ideological crisis in the USSR, he said, Caliber.Az reports, citing Armenian media.

According to Pashinyan, he repeatedly reread the text of the declaration before the 2020 war and especially after it. The prime minister admitted that the perception of the text before and after those events differed significantly.

"A critical analysis of the text of the declaration shows that we ended up choosing a discourse and content that is based on a formula that turned us into a part of the USSR. We are talking about a regional environment and a confrontational discourse that was supposed to keep us in a state of conflict with our neighbours all the time," Pashinyan said.

According to the prime minister, with this declaration Armenia proclaimed a course of secession from the USSR, but also closed all roads to exit from it.

"With the declaration adopted at the end of the 20th century, we adopted the formula that led us to the loss of independence at the beginning of the 20th century," Pashinyan believes.

From his point of view, it is unknown where other roads would have led, but analysing the path already taken is a historical duty.

The premier believes that after taking office in 2018, he treated the declaration as a "biblical message", while it needed and still needs to be deeply analysed, as it is a political document with all the implications.

"And now, on the 33rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I want to emphasise that our peace agenda is an independence agenda. If we have peace, there will be independence. As long as there is no peace, the ghost of the USSR will hover in our sky, in the sky of our region," Pashinyan said confidently.

The prime minister said that he "chooses independence, sovereignty, democracy." And the same, in his opinion, is what a citizen of the Republic of Armenia chooses.