In a national address, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reflected on the historic shift taking place in the region following the August 8 summit, declaring that Armenia and the South Caucasus have entered an entirely new era, one defined by peace, yet unfamiliar to its people.
“Since August 8, we are living in an entirely different, fundamentally new South Caucasus. We are living in an entirely different, fundamentally new Republic of Armenia, and this is a fact we must recognize,” Pashinyan said.
“I say this because it’s not easy. This is a new and unfamiliar reality for all of us.”
Pashinyan emphasized that citizens of Armenia’s Third Republic have never truly experienced peace.
“We don’t know what peace is. We don’t know what it means to live in peace, to work in peace. It is an unfamiliar feeling, because since the first day of our independence, we have lived in an atmosphere of conflict, in a state of war or neither-war-nor-peace.”
He noted that while people have always dreamed of peace, those who dared to speak of it were often criticized.
“So peace, for us, is an unfamiliar concept, an unfamiliar reality. It is a foreign kind of life, and I ask that we not underestimate the weight of this truth. This means we must, in effect, learn from zero what it means to live peacefully. We must understand what peace truly is, what it looks like, what shape it takes.”
He went on to stress that peace is not a given, but something that must be shaped and nurtured:
“When you begin to think this way, you realize that peace will take on the form and character we give it—that we will define it, we will build it. And of course, this must be done together with Azerbaijan, not alone.”
Pashinyan concluded by stating that established peace requires daily care and attention, underscoring that peace is not an endpoint, but an ongoing, shared responsibility.
