Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan visited the Sardarapat Memorial today to mark Republic Day, commemorating the anniversary of the First Armenian Republic in 1918.

Pashinyan issued the following statement:

I congratulate all of us on May 28, Republic Day.

On this day in 1918, the Armenian people created a republican state for the first time in its history. For the first time in our reality, a state was created where the power belongs to the people.

This epoch-making event took place in the conditions of the collapse of empires, the formation of a new empire and world order, when our people were able to prove their right to live in the battles of Sardarapati, Bash-Aparan, and Gharakilisa.

But the First Republic lived for only two and a half years, because after winning the struggle for existence and declaring a state, we did not manage to formulate our vision of living in an independent state, we did not manage to make living in the first republic comfortable and profitable for ourselves.

The First Republic did not manage to position itself as a means of security, well-being, and happiness for its own citizens, because, in fact, it did not have a single day of peace during its entire existence. Famine, emigration from the Genocide, internal disputes, centuries-old lack of economy, state institutions, culture of statehood, foreign influence and war caused the fall of the First Republic.

This, however, does not belittle the role of the First Republic at all. After a break of more than 540 years, the Armenian people had a state and for the first time had a republic, and the lessons of that republic are on our table today.

Today, I want to emphasize only one of those many lessons. Living in the Republic of Armenia should be comfortable and beneficial for its citizens, prosperity and happiness should be realized today and not in the distant future, and the moment to untangle historical knots is now and not later.

The First Republic did not have time. We still have time. The First Republic could not stand after the 1920 war. We are standing after the 2020 war and we are building a homeland-state that is here and now, and we will no longer go looking for a new homeland, because our homeland is our state.

That state is both a goal and a means. It is a goal, because the state itself can best express the interest of its founder, the people. It is a means, because the state itself can best express the interest of its founder, the people. And that interest forces us to have security, well-being, and happiness for our long-suffering people, and this is possible under conditions of orderly relations with neighbors, only and only under conditions of peace, something that the First Republic did not have, something that, unfortunately, the Third Republic still does not have.

This is the reason why we have adopted and consistently implement the peace agenda, because all our martyrs fell for the sake of their own people's happiness and not suffering, and it is a prosperous, developed, living and safe Armenia, the Republic of Armenia, the State of Armenia that will bring eternal peace to the souls of all our martyrs.

Glory to all our martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the motherland.