Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan released a statement on April 24 paying homage to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
In his address, Pashinyan linked remembrance of the 1915 Armenian Genocide with a broader political message emphasizing statehood, peace, and the Republic of Armenia’s current internationally recognized borders as the foundation for the country’s future.
He also warned that certain forces promoting the so-called “historical justice” risk pushing Armenia back toward policies that could endanger its statehood and sovereignty.
Below is the full text of Pashinyan’s statement.
“Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
Today we commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915—the Medz Yeghern—and pay tribute to our compatriots who, for being Armenian, were subjected to massacre, deportation, and famine in the Ottoman Empire. The Medz Yeghern is the greatest tragedy that has befallen our people, one that we have been reliving for 111 years.
Every year on April 24, tens of thousands of our citizens march to the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial to bow before our martyred compatriots. Our nationwide procession on this day is also an expression of reflection, remembrance, historical assessment, and a determination to prevent the recurrence of the Medz Yeghern. It is upon this reflection and determination that the policies of the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the ruling majority in recent years have been based.
By your mandate, citizens of the Republic of Armenia, we have shown resolve to more deeply understand our people’s past and its recurring patterns, in order to prevent their repetition and to build a better present and future.
Today we have reached that goal, including by recognizing that the Medz Yeghern must not be allowed to become a tool in the hands of international actors in their conflicts with one another. The academic volume on the History of Armenia published by our National Academy of Sciences substantiates that the Medz Yeghern was also a consequence of the practice of drawing the Armenian people into international machinations—a practice that began in the mid-19th century and reached its tragic culmination in 1915.
Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia, our people’s greatest aspiration has been fulfilled: we have a state, and we have peace. Statehood and peace are the guarantees that the Armenian Genocide will never happen again.
To realize this historic goal, we must cease searching for a homeland beyond the internationally recognized 29,743 square kilometers of the Republic of Armenia. This territory is not small for the prosperity, development, and well-being of the Armenian people. Today, dozens of our settlements are empty, and many more—as well as our state overall—are underpopulated. This has been due to a lack of peace and an absence of awareness that the homeland is the state, identity is the state, and security is the state—with its internationally recognized borders. Based on this understanding, the Armenian people must move beyond the logic of emigration and wandering.
With its current territory, the Republic of Armenia can become a home to 5 million, even 10 million Armenians. The territory of Singapore is smaller than two-thirds of Lake Sevan, yet 5.5 million people live there, because the state is built on education, self-awareness, peace, and human-centered aspirations. Today we are leading the Republic of Armenia with this very logic—the ideology of a Real Armenia—understanding that peace and security, first and foremost, mean normalized relations with neighbors, based on mutual recognition of territorial integrity, sovereignty, inviolability of borders, and political independence.
Those forces that call for “reclaiming lost homelands,” “restoring historical borders,” and “historical justice” place the Republic of Armenia back on the path of the 1878 San Stefano Conference, whose inevitable final stop is the loss of statehood and homeland. This is because everyone in the world has their own history, their own justice, and their own lost homeland.
We have ultimately escaped this trap, and attempts to drag Armenia back in that direction are an invitation to the gallows for our state and people. At the cost of victims and sacrifices, we have found and rediscovered our homeland, and that homeland is the Republic of Armenia. The repayment of all our martyrs’ sacrifices is the eternity of the Republic of Armenia.
The freedom, security, and well-being of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia are the fulfillment of the aspirations and interrupted dreams of all our martyrs. We are moving along this path. The people of the Republic of Armenia are moving along this path.
Glory to the martyrs, and long live the Republic of Armenia."
