“Armenia is not preparing to become something else. Armenia is Armenia, and Armenia will be more and more Armenia, will be the Republic of Armenia.” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told Euronews, responding to the Russian official’s statement about Armenia becoming a “new Ukraine.”
“I mean the level of independence. Our goal is to strengthen, to develop our independence, and that is a legitimate, lawful goal. No one can blame Armenia for the fact that Armenia has the ambition, the aspiration to be more independent, to be more sovereign, to be a more engaged state, and, by the way, there is a very important nuance that I would like to present to you.
In our policy, when we deepen our cooperation with the European Union, it is very important that as a result of this policy we are not cut off from our region, because now regional policy is one of our country’s priorities. Because during our independence we have had a conflict with Azerbaijan, we have had or have complex relations or an absence of relations with Turkey. Of course, we have always had very good relations with Georgia, with Iran. But there have been and remain certain restrictions related to international sanctions and so on, but, you know, we do not see Armenia outside our region, because our European policy is not for us a tool or a means to be cut off or to isolate ourselves politically, psychologically or economically from our region.
On the contrary, and, of course, we are very glad, and there is a very important nuance that we sometimes do not see. Two of our four neighbors are European Union candidate states, Turkey and Georgia. And that is an advantage, a benefit for our European policy.”
We hope Armenia will be the third candidate state in our region. But, of course, our goal is not to be a candidate, naturally, it is to be a full member,” the prime minister said.
