By Nane Sahakian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenia is still fighting for its independence more than three decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Tuesday, August 23.
Pashinyan stressed the importance of national security and normalizing relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey as he congratulated Armenians on the 32nd anniversary of a declaration of independence adopted by their country’s first post-Communist parliament.
The 1990 declaration stopped short of announcing Armenia’s immediate secession from the Soviet Union. It announced instead “the start of a process of establishing independent statehood.”
“De facto, that process has not ended until today, not because we don’t have independence but because independence is like health, which even if you have it, you have to take care of it every day,” Pashinyan said in a statement. issued on the occasion.
“The government is fighting for the independence of the Republic of Armenia every day,” he said. “For us, independence is security. The international structures that provide it are cracking in front of all of us, and one of the first cracks unfortunately manifested itself in Nagorno-Karabakh.