Pashinyan In Stepanakert Reveals ‘Strategic Goals’ For Armenia

“Our goal is to have at least five Armenian technological companies whose values will be over $10 billion and 10,000 working startups,” he said. “By the index of combat readiness our army should be at least among the world’s top 20 armies and we should have one of the world’s top ten most efficient intelligence services.”

According to the Pashinyan government’s vision, by 2050 Armenia will become a country annually attracting 15 million tourists and excelling in sports. “We will strive to make Armenia’s national soccer team a medal winner at a European or world championship, gain 25 Olympic gold medals and get an individual world champion in chess,” he said.

“I am convinced that many of you wonder why I am saying nothing about Artsakh [Karabakh]. The answer is very simple: Artsakh is Armenia. Period,” Pashinyan said, drawing cheers from the crowd.

The Armenian premier stressed that while his government sees a comprehensive fulfillment of the goals by 2050, some of these goals can be fulfilled much earlier. “So, it does not mean that we should sit and wait until then. We start working on the realization of these goal already today,” said Pashinyan, adding that it is equally important to have a “roadmap” for the realization of these “mega-goals.”

“The realization of these strategic goals should become the backbone of the pan-Armenian agenda,” he said.

At the same time, Pashinyan stressed that the Armenian people should agree on a number of “consensuses” for the achievement of the ambitious goals. Thus, according to him, violence should be excluded in solving domestic issues; free and fair elections should be the only source of forming governments; any attempt to bring in foreign forces in settling domestic Armenian affairs should entail a strong reaction from the government; Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh should be free from corruption and abide by the principles of rule of law, equality of all before law, which includes independent courts.