Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued a statement on the 35th anniversary of Armenia’s declaration of independence, on August 23, calling the “key ideological provisions” of the document “conflict-oriented” and a result of “collective patriotism” that had been “instilled in us by the Soviet Union.”
The ideology, Pashinyan argued on Saturday, August 23, “shaped our socio-psychology, which eventually led to the Karabakh Movement,” adding that “its deep, subconscious goal was the strategic impossibility of the existence of an independent Armenian state.”
“A complete and comprehensive analysis of the information and reality available to me as prime minister has brought me to the unshakable conviction that we should not continue the Karabakh Movement, as it means abolishing the independence of the Republic of Armenia.”
Pashinyan’s statement was the latest instance of him criticizing the Karabakh Movement, which pushed for the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1980s and 1990s. Two full-scale wars were fought over the territory, as well as several smaller clashes, with Azerbaijan ultimately seizing Nagorno-Karabakh in a final lightning offensive in 2023 that resulted in the exodus of virtually all of the region’s Armenian population.
In Saturday’s statement, Pashinyan also addressed the Second Nagorno Karabakh War.
