On this day in 1990, the Supreme Council of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic declared the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.

To mark the anniversary, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan released a poem he wrote entitled The Real Armenia in which he reiterates a recent call he made for Armenians to clearly understand the difference between today’s Republic of Armenia and the abstract conception of historic Armenia.

The first verse translates as:

We want to see you happy

But we must see you for this to happen.

Our gaze, far from you,

Unceasingly search for homelands.

Pashinyan also referred to the preamble of the Declaration of Independence that calls for the “Reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh.”

Baku argues that Armenia’s Constitution, by referencing the Declaration of Independence, makes territorial claims regarding Karabakh and that any such reference be deleted from the document.

While Pashinyan, of late, has called for a new constitution, arguing the issue is a “fundamental problem” facing Armenia, in a statement today said “Contrary to various interpretations, this does not mean that the entire content of the Declaration of Independence is included in the RA Constitution and the content of these two documents are identical.”

Pashinyan first floated the idea of a new constitution in 2020, two years after coming to power, arguing that the people of Armenia did not trust the existing constitution.

While he didn’t go into details as to why he believes the current constitution is not “legitimate”, it can be assumed was referring to the December 2015 national referendum that changed Armenia’s political governance from a semi-presidential system to a parliamentary republic.

Opposition forces in Armenia have argued that the call made by Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan in January for a new constitution was the result of pressure from Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan’s original efforts to hold a referendum to amend the constitution in April 2020 were indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the declaration of a state of emergency in Armenia.